The glass dome in the main lobby of the Gran Hotel Bolivar.

The Gran Hotel Bolivar, the home of the pisco sour.

A model T Ford, in the hotel reception. Where else would you put it!

The catedral, an extra large pisco sour traditionally drunk on a Sunday morning after church.

The man with the mike in the blue t-shirt was making a lot of noise but not much else.

Typical building with balcony in Lima in the 1600s.

This building on Calle de Coca dates back to 1603

We had a pisco sour tasting, a little bit of 5 different types, the original was the best.

The interior of the church at the San Francisco monastery.

Now that's a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, just as well we only had half each.

The main square which houses the presidential palace under lockdown due to a protest.

Fransisco Pizarro, the founder of Lima in 1535.

There must have been a sale on Messi shirts.

I doubt there is a bank closure programme in Peru, as this was a queue to get into one.

The building at the end is the train station, which also doubles as a museum and arts centre.

The couple in front looked infatuated with each other, we immediately thought it's an affair!

Lima's Colonial Past

January 31 in Peru ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

For the first time in South America we went for a run this morning. The seafront promenade was the perfect place to run and was busy at 6:30am with joggers, walkers, dog walkers, dog joggers and even some cyclists. We both felt quite good, must have been those few extra red blood cells we developed after 2 nights at altitude in Quito!

After breakfast we did a tour of the central district of Lima which dates back to it's foundation in 1535, with many buildings from the 1600s still around. However, the main square housing the presidential palace and Plaza San Martin were cordoned off in the morning due to a protest. These areas were flooded with police, quite a number of them with riot gear in hand just incase. It turned out to be a very small demonstration, maybe 15 people protesting about COVID vaccinations! Though there was a counter demonstration of about 30 medical students but it all seemed very civilised.

After a walk though what was open we went to the San Franciscan monastery. We had a tour of the museum and the crypt which at one time held 20,000 bodies. Though they stopped burying people under the monastery in 1822, there were still many skulls and femurs in there. Bodies were buried communally and covered in quick lime to decompose the remains. However, while most bones would disintegrate, the thicker, heavier bones like femurs and skulls tended to survive the process.

After the tour we went to the Gran Bolivar hotel, the supposed origin of the pisco sour or at least the catedral pisco sour. An over sized version favoured by locals who had come straight there from Sunday mass at the cathedral and who needed a stiff drink.

The surroundings and the drink were very nice but not as good, in my opinion, as the one we had the previous night. So this evening after dinner, Peruvian cerviche, far superior to Equadorian cerviche I'm told, we went back to La Tasca for a farewell drink. We must be building up a tolerance to pisco as tonight we managed two in there, which would have been impossible last night.Read more