Continuing to Explore Lima

We continue our exploration of Lima, the "City of Kings", which is famous for its Spanish colonial architecture, extraordinary museums and cuisine.  The photo above shows the Plaza de Armas - the main square, as does this:

And this:

This is the Palacio de Gobierno - or Government Palace:

All this area is very beautiful and, as you can imagine, very popular with tourists, but I was fortunate on one occasion to be invited inside this building to meet a member of parliament, who had actually helped me get a job teaching English in Trujillo some time earlier.

We have already visited the cathedral so now we go from the Plaza de Armas into the shopping district of La Union, which has some beautiful Colonial buildings, like the one above.  And now we walk down here:

And have a look at some typical Peruvian "artesania, or arts and crafts

You can lose yourselves in these "tiendas", finding ware from all over the country, but particularly from the Andes - as above - and silver, for which Peru is famous.  And it's much cheaper than in Europe and North America.  Here's some more:

Moving on a little further, how would you like to live here?

Which is quite a contrast to this, the oldest building in La Union:

A visit to the various museums is well worth it and this is one of the treasures found in the Larco Museum:

These are1300 - 1532 A.D. Imperial Epoch
Set of ornaments from a Chimu dignitary.

We are preparing  a Gastronomic Tour of Lima because there are so many wonderful restaurants in the city for both national and international cuisine and local varieties of many Italian, French and Chinese dishes.   These are some of our favourites:
First course:
Cebiche. bite-size pieces of raw fish marinated in lemon juice, onion and hot chilli pepper, garnished with corn on the cob and sweet potato.
Soup 
Parihuela  a concentrated broth of fish and shellfish.
A choice of main dishes
Lomo saltado  sliced beef sautéed with onion and tomato, mixed in with fried potatoes and served with rice.
Aji de Gallina  diced chicken in a thick sauce of milk, cheese, aji chili pepper and nuts, served with rice.
Desserts
Mazzamora Morada  sweet purple maize jelly stewed with fresh and dried fruits:

Suspiro a la Limena   rich milk and vanilla cream topped with meringue.

For information on how to visit Peru see our website www.peru-experience.com