Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [57]
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SIGHTS
Museums filled with millennia worth of artifacts and artistic treasures. Baroque churches that have their roots in the early days of the Spanish colony. Historic houses painted shades of yellow, pink and blue. And, to top it all off, water shows that put Las Vegas to shame. You could spend weeks in Lima and still not see it all.
Central Lima
Bustling narrow streets are lined with ornate baroque churches in the city’s historic and commercial center, located on the south bank of the Río Rímac.
PLAZA DE ARMAS
It is here that Lima was born. The 140-sq-meter Plaza de Armas (Map), also called the Plaza Mayor, was not only the heart of the 16th-century settlement established by Francisco Pizarro, it was a center of a continent-wide empire ruled by the Spanish. Sadly, not one original building remains. But, at the center of the plaza you will find one of the area’s oldest features: an impressive bronze fountain erected in 1650.
Surrounding the plaza are a number of significant public buildings: to the east resides the Palacio Arzobispal (Archbishop’s Palace) built in 1924 in a colonial style and boasting some of the most exquisite Moorish-style balconies in the city. To the northeast is the block-long Palacio de Gobierno, a grandiose baroque-style building from 1937 that serves as the residence of Peru’s president. Out front stands a handsomely uniformed presidential guard (think French Foreign legion, c 1900) that conducts a changing of the guard every day at noon – a ceremonious affair that involves slow-motion goose-stepping and the sublime sounds of a brass band playing El Cóndor Pasa as a military march.
Unfortunately, the palace is no longer regularly open to visitors. However, there are occasional exhibits to which the public is admitted, provided you make an appointment at least 48 hours in advance. Check the website for a schedule of exhibits; if one is happening, make an appointment through the Office of Public Relations (311-4200, 311-3900, ext 378; www.presidencia.gob.pe; 8:30am-1pm & 2:30-5:30pm Mon-Fri). Otherwise, the web page offers a virtual tour (click on Visita Virtual) in which you can see the building’s lavish interiors.
La Catedral de Lima
Next to the Archbishop’s palace resides the cathedral (Map; 427-9647; admission S10; 9am-5pm Mon-Fri, 10am-1pm Sat), on the same plot of land that Pizarro designated for the city’s first church in 1535. Though it retains a baroque facade, the building you see today has been built and rebuilt numerous times: in 1551, in 1622 and after the earthquakes of 1687 and 1746. The last major restoration was completed in 1940.
Unfortunately, a craze for all things neoclassical in the late 18th century left much of the interior (and the interiors of many Lima churches) stripped of its elaborate baroque decor. Even so, there is plenty to see. The various chapels along the nave display more than a dozen altars carved in every imaginable style and the ornate wood choir, produced by Pedro de Noguera in the early 17th century, is a masterpiece of rococo sculpture. A religious museum, in the rear, features paintings, vestments and an intricate sacristy.
By the cathedral’s main door is the mosaic-covered chapel where the battered remains of Pizarro have long lain. The authenticity of these came into question in 1977, after workers cleaning out a crypt discovered several bodies and a sealed lead box containing a skull that bore the inscription, ‘Here is the head of the gentleman Marquis Don Francisco Pizarro, who found and conquered the kingdom of Peru…’ After a battery of tests in the 1980s, a US forensic scientist concluded that the body previously on display was of an unknown official and that the brutally stabbed and headless body from the crypt was Pizarro’s. Head and body were reunited and transferred to the chapel,