First we went to the Larco Herrera Museum. This is a beautiful museum with a private collection built by the Larco family. Housing exquisite examples of art of all the cultures that we have seen in Peru, the collection is vast and they have employed visible storage vaults off of each of the galleries to give the visitor a glimpse of many, many examples of each kind of pot. The erotic art galley featured pots with sexual motifs, clearly fertility in nature. This was a big hit with our group.
We then drove 15km south down the coast, to the ruin of Pachacamac. This site is impressive by its size, but it was so thoroughly plundered by the Spaniards as to have rendered it useless scientifically. We were told that Chan Chan is forty times larger, for perspective!
Then on to lunch in a trendy little bistro and the tour of Colonial Lima. Here our guide, Yvonne, really shone. She marched us through the Cathedral right on the city square, reciting dates and architectural styles. Pizarro is buried in the cathedral. She really knows art history and the history of her city. We saw the important govt buildings. The most wonderful site was the monestary of San Francisco. It housed murals,some restored and some not. It was very old, dating from the 16th cen. It even had catacombs built underneath. It is a massive structure with thick walls and a huge foundations. It seems to have remained unscathed by any of the many earthquakes that have struck Lima during the past 400 years! foundations. It seems to have remained unscathed by any of the many earthquakes that have struck Lima during the past 400 years!
We returned too tired to go to the market, so we ate at a great steak restaurant across the street from our hotel.
