Lima · Things to do

Pre-Columbian ceramics and metalwork in an 18th-century mansion at Av. Simón Bolívar 1515, entrance on Navarra 169, open daily 09:00–19:00 including holidays. Adults S/50, over-60s S/35, students and ages 9–17 S/25; the walk-through storeroom of tens of thousands of pots is the part people remember.

A stepped adobe and clay pyramid built by the Lima culture roughly between AD 200 and 700, sitting in the middle of a residential block a few streets from Parque Kennedy. Access is by guided tour only, including evening tours under floodlights; book at the gate or through the Miraflores municipality, as the old lookalike web domain is no longer the site's own.

A large pre-Inca and Inca pilgrimage complex at Antigua Carretera Panamericana Sur Km 31.5 in Lurín, roughly an hour south of Miraflores, with a purpose-built site museum, guided visits, Braille guides and paid parking. Peruvians and foreign residents get in free on the first Sunday of each month.

The 17th-century Franciscan convent in the historic centre, with a tiled cloister, an old library and bone-lined crypts underneath that were the city's burial ground until the early 1800s. Visits are by timed guided tour through the day; buy at the door.

Several kilometres of clifftop park strung along the top of the bluffs above the Pacific, free and open at all hours, and the cheapest good thing in the city. Paragliders launch from the park near Raimondi in the afternoon when the wind sets in; tandem flights are sold on the spot and are not cheap.