Like a large part of the South American capitals, the first contact at the exit of the airport can seem quite strange, brick houses, not always finished, that rise in disorder along the roads, where a large circulation of buses and taxis form one of the most chaotic traffic. Lima, this tentacular city where one third of Peruvians live, nevertheless presents many riches that are worth discovering and that make you forget that first bad impression of the beginning.
What was the reason that pushed Pizarro to implant the capital of his vice reign in Lima in 1535? At the edge of the Rímac River, the conqueror opened a path through the ocean and Spain, and a path into the interior of the country and its untapped wealth in Lima. Lima, immediately became the city The most important university in the New World, and it was here that the continent's first university, the first printing press, or the headquarters of the Inquisition.
However, virtually none of the palaces from the beginning of the colonial era. Lima was completely devastated in 1746 by a violent earthquake. Getting lost in the streets around the city of Lima is a gift and makes you want to discover a población full of riches. The ocher yellow makes room for the pinks, as well as the blue ones of the facades always decorated with magnificent exterior balconies. On the sidewalks, small merchants set up their stalls. The church and the convent of San Francisco They are one of the few things that escaped that devastating earthquake.
Inside, the frenzy of the city leaves room for a silence full of magnificence, the immense number of chapels decorated with polychrome wooden statues, with silver, precious stones, paintings, Sevillian pottery, but also catacombs where the skulls and bones arranged in concentric circles offer a rather mysterious spectacle.