Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [63]
So why would the Spanish build the capital of their Andean empire at the one point on the coast regularly blanketed by this ghostly fog? Well, they likely wouldn’t have known. Francisco Pizarro established the city on January 18 – right in the middle of summer – when the skies are blue every day.
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Taxis from Miraflores start at about S8 or, from San Isidro, you can catch one of the many buses or combis (minivans) heading east along Av Javier Prado Oeste toward La Molina.
MUSEO DE ORO DEL PERÚ
The now notorious Museo de Oro del Perú (Gold Museum of Peru; Map; 345-1292; www.museoroperu.com.pe; Alonso de Molina 1100, Monterrico; adult/child under 11 S33/16; 11:30am-7pm), a private museum, was a Lima must-see until 2001, when a study revealed that 85% of the museum’s metallurgical pieces were fakes. It reopened with an assurance that works on display are bona fide – and some vitrines bear cards that classify certain pieces as ‘reproductions’ – but the cluttered, poorly signed exhibits leave something to be desired. Better presented and more convenient is the new annex (Map; 620-6222; www.larcomar.com/salamuseo; LarcoMar, Malecón de la Reserva 610, Miraflores; admission S25; 10am-10pm), in the seaside shopping mall of LarcoMar.
Of greater interest (and, in all likelihood, of greater authenticity) are the thousands of weapons presented in the Arms Museum, on the museum’s ground floor. Here, in various jumbled rooms, you’ll find rifles, swords and guns from every century imaginable, including a firearm that once belonged to Fidel Castro.
Taxis from Miraflores start at about S10. Likewise, you can take a combi heading northeast on Angamos toward Monterrico and get off at the Puente Primavera. From there, it’s a 15-minute stroll north to the museum.
ASOCIACIóN MUSEO DEL AUTOMóVIL
The Asociación Museo del Automóvil (Automobile Museum; Map; 368-0373; www.museodelautomovilnicolini.com; Av La Molina, Cuadra 37, cnr Totoritas, La Molina; adult S20; 9:30am-7pm) has an impressive array of classic cars dating back to 1901, from a Ford Model T to a Cadillac Fleetwood that was used by no fewer than four Peruvian presidents.
San Isidro & Points West
A combination of middle- and upper-class residential neighborhoods offer some important sights of note.
MUSEO LARCO
An 18th-century viceroy’s mansion houses this museum (Map; 461-1825; http://museolarco.org; Bolívar 1515, Pueblo Libre; adult/child under 15 S30/15; 9am-6pm), which has one of the largest, best-presented displays of ceramics in Lima. Founded by Rafael Larco Hoyle in 1926, a dedicated collector and cataloguer of all things pre-Columbian, the collection is said to include, among other things, more than 50,000 pots (with thousands of extras housed in glass storerooms, which visitors can also see). The museum showcases ceramic works from the Cupisnique, Chimú, Chancay, Nazca and Inca cultures, but the highlight is the sublime Moche portrait vessels, presented in simple, dramatically lit cases. Equally astonishing: a Wari weaving in one of the rear galleries that contains 398 threads to the linear inch – a record. What lures many visitors here, however, is a separately housed collection of pre-Columbian erotic pots that illustrate, with comical explicitness, all manner of sexual activity. Not to be missed is the vitrine that depicts sexually transmitted diseases.
The well-recommended on-site restaurant (mains S28-40) faces a private garden draped in bougainvillea and is a perfect spot for ceviche (raw seafood marinated in lime juice).
Catch a bus from Av Arequipa in Miraflores marked ‘Todo Bolívar’ to Bolívar’s 15th block. Taxis start at about S7. A painted blue line on the sidewalk links this building to the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historía del Perú, about a 15-minute walk away.
MUSEO NACIONAL DE ANTROPOLOGíA, ARQUEOLOGíA E HISTOR