Plaza Mayor and Plaza San MartinA long pedestrian street crowded with shoppers,
vendors and sightseers connects Lima's two main plazas to each
other. The heart of the old town is centred on the striking Plaza
Mayor, or Plaza de Armas, gracefully colonial with its bronze
fountain and old street lamps. It was once the central marketplace,
where bullfights were held during Spanish rule. Surrounding the
square are several notable buildings, including the grand Spanish
Baroque Cathedral, occupying the site of an ancient Inca temple and
housing the Museum of Religious Art and Treasures; the impressive
Government Palace where the changing of the guard takes place; the
Town Hall; and the Archbishop's Palace sporting a beautiful wooden
balcony. The Plaza San Martin is an impressive square with a hive
of activity surrounding its central fountains; a busy area of
shoe-shiners, soapbox speakers, street artists and the site for
political rallies and rioting workers.Museo de la Nación (National Museum)The superb anthropological and archaeological National
Museum contains excellent exhibits tracing the history of Peru's
ancient civilisations and provides an outstanding overview of the
archaeological richness of the country. It is the city's largest
and the country's most important museum and the chronological
layout guides visitors easily through the complicated ancient
history, highlighting the many conquering cultures and their
achievements, from the art and history of the original inhabitants
to the Inca Empire.Museo de Oro del Peru (Gold Museum)Housed in a fortress-like building are the safe-rooms
crammed with treasures from the Inca civilisation and their
predecessors. The massive collection of gleaming gold, ceremonial
objects and jewellery compete for attention, and the famous golden
Tumi, the symbol of Peru, has been exhibited around the world. The
rest of the museum is just as interesting with thousands of
exquisite tapestries, pre-Incan weapons and wooden staffs, masks,
mummies, and clothing. There is also a vast display of antique
weapons and uniforms, a reminder of Peru's violent
past.Museo Rafael Larco HerreraThe 18th century colonial-style museum houses the
largest and most impressive ceramic collection in the world, with
about 55,000 pre-Colombian clay pots on display. The collection
concentrates on the refined ceramics of the Moche Dynasty, the
people who lived along the northern coast of Peru between 200 and
700 AD. The Moche culture is recognized as accomplishing one of the
greatest imaginative languages of ancient Peru through the use of
creative pottery, providing clues to all aspects of their
civilization without the use of the written word. One can learn
about their religion, agriculture, transport, dance and music
through their ceramic designs and shapes. The Moche are also
renowned for their fascinating erotic pottery and the famous
collection is on display in the separate 'Erotic Hall', depicting
sexual practices of several Peruvian cultures in a lifelike,
explicit and often humorous way.Church of San FranciscoThe most spectacular of Lima's colonial churches, San
Francisco is a striking white and yellow building with twin towers
and a stone façade. It was one of the few buildings to survive the
devastation of the 1746 earthquake and is famous for its
underground catacombs that contain the bones and skulls of an
estimated 70,000 people. The interior of the church has arches and
columns decorated with beautiful mosaic tiles and an exquisitely
carved Moorish-style wooden ceiling above the staircase leading to
the cloisters. The church also contains a superb 17th century
library with thousands of antique texts and a room containing
painted masterpieces by Reubens, Van Dyck and
Jordaens.PiscoPisco is a small port and fishing village, best known
for its fiery white grape brandy of the same name. It also boasts
the origins of one of the major ancient civilisations in Peru, the
Paracas culture, who left an astounding collection of antiquities
that are displayed in the museums of Lima. The area is primarily
visited as a base to see the wildlife of the nearby Paracas
National Reserve, home to an incredible variety and huge
concentration of marine animals and birds. Locals proudly proclaim
it to be the 'Peruvian Galapagos', and the main focus of a visit to
the reserve is a boat tour of the Ballestas Islands. The islands
are off limits to people but the boat tours afford spectacular
close up views of the wildlife. The rocks are alive with thousands
of migratory and resident sea birds, including pelicans, flamingos,
penguins, cormorants, red boobies and terns. Huge colonies of
barking sea lions line the shores, and turtles, dolphins and
sometimes whales are seen in the surrounding waters. En route to
the islands boats pass the famous Candelabra, a gigantic
trident-shaped drawing etched into the sandstone cliffs overlooking
the bay, and like the drawings at Nazca, its origins remain a
mystery.NazcaNazca is a small desert town, named for the Nazca
civilisation that came after the Paracas culture, and it is a major
attraction due to the mysterious presence of the lines and diagrams
etched into the surrounding desert floor. It also has some
interesting museums and archaeological sites, including the
Chauchilla Cemetery, with 12 exposed underground tombs containing
skeletons and preserved mummified forms. The main attraction of the
town is an aerial flight over the Nazca Lines that are spread over
miles of the vast desert floor. The dimensions of these enormous
figures, geometric designs, spirals and perfectly straight lines
are so large that the only way to view them is from the air and
pilots will point out the outlines of intriguing bird and animal
representations such as the hummingbird, monkey, condor, spider,
and the unusual cartoon-like character known as the Astronaut.
These figures were made by removing sun-darkened stones from the
desert floor to expose the lighter coloured stones below, and were
created over a thousand years ago. Theories abound regarding the
mysterious desert etchings, and questions as to why they were
created, how they were designed and what technology was used,
remain unanswered and have puzzled experts for centuries. The Nazca
Lines are among the most unforgettable and strangest sights in the
country, an extraordinary legacy left by the ancient people of the
Nazca culture, and one of the great mysteries of South
America.
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