Things to do in Lima

Nature · Miraflores and Barranco clifftops

Ten kilometres of clifftop park two hundred feet above the Pacific, with paragliders launching over the traffic below.

Local tip: The parks run continuously from Magdalena to Barranco and are the city's real public living room — free outdoor gyms, cycle lanes, and a sunset that is the one reliable reward for the garúa. The beaches at the bottom are stony and the current is serious; the cliff path is the point, not the sand.

Nightlife · South of Miraflores along the coast

Lima's bohemian district — republican-era houses in faded colours, galleries, bars and the Puente de los Suspiros.

Local tip: The stretch around Parque Municipal is where visitors go; the better bars and the small live-music venues are inland along Avenida Grau and in the streets behind the Bajada de Baños. Thursday is quietly the best night — Friday and Saturday bring the whole city.

Landmark · Cercado de Lima, north of the modern centre

The colonial core and a UNESCO World Heritage site — Plaza Mayor, the cathedral, and the catacombs beneath San Francisco.

Local tip: Most Limeños from the southern districts almost never come here, which is a shame and also a warning: it is superb by day and thins out fast after dark. The Convento de San Francisco catacombs hold the bones of tens of thousands of people and are the single most memorable hour in the city.

Food · Surquillo, across the Vía Expresa from Miraflores

The working market where much of Lima's restaurant scene shops, five minutes from Miraflores and a different world.

Local tip: Come before 10am. The fruit section alone runs to varieties with no English name — lúcuma, chirimoya, granadilla, aguaymanto — and the ceviche counters at the back serve the same fish as restaurants charging ten times more. Bring cash and small notes.

Culture · Miraflores, six blocks from Parque Kennedy

A pre-Inca adobe pyramid from around 500 AD sitting in the middle of a residential district, still being excavated.

Local tip: There are more than three hundred huacas scattered through modern Lima and most people walk past them for years. Pucllana is the one with evening guided tours — the floodlit adobe against the apartment blocks is the clearest possible picture of what this city is built on.

Nature · Chorrillos, 30 minutes south of Miraflores

A protected coastal wetland inside the metropolitan area — reed beds, lagoons, and several hundred bird species including flamingos.

Local tip: A Ramsar-listed wetland surrounded by a city of ten million, and almost no foreign resident knows it exists. Go early on a weekday morning with binoculars; the migratory season from September brings the numbers up sharply. Entry is a few soles and there are marked circuits of different lengths.