Lima has more than forty museums spread across the city, and most travelers have one or two days before flying to Cusco. Choosing well among that range requires knowing what each one offers and which type of visitor it suits best. This guide does not aim to rank museums in a single order, but rather to help you choose based on the time available, your interests, and what you will already be seeing during the rest of your trip in Peru.
Contents
- To understand pre-Hispanic Peru: the Larco Museum
- For colonial and republican history: MUCEN
- For pre-Hispanic archaeology in Miraflores: Huaca Pucllana
- For colonial Lima history: San Francisco convent and catacombs
- For colonial religious art: Lima Cathedral
- To understand contemporary Peru: the Museum of the Nation
- For Dominican religious history: Santo Domingo convent
- For pre-Hispanic goldwork with context: the Gold Museum
- For pre-Hispanic history in the historic center: MUCEN and Casa Concha
- How to combine museums in one or two days in Lima
To understand pre-Hispanic Peru: the Larco Museum
The Larco Museum in the district of Pueblo Libre is the most complete museum in Lima for anyone who wants to understand Peru before the Incas. It has more than 45,000 pieces of ceramics, textiles, goldwork, and ritual objects from the main pre-Hispanic cultures of the Peruvian coast, from the earliest to the Inca Empire. The Moche collection, with its portrait vessels, is unique in the world. The open storage rooms, where visitors can see pieces that do not fit in the exhibition galleries arranged on open shelves, have no equivalent in any other museum on the continent. The bougainvillea garden and the restaurant make it one of the most pleasant places in Lima to spend an afternoon.
Admission costs 50 soles for foreign adults. It is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
For colonial and republican history: MUCEN
The Central Museum of the Central Reserve Bank, known as MUCEN, is located at the corner of Jirón Lampa and Jirón Ucayali in the historic center. It has an archaeological gallery with pre-Hispanic ceramics and goldwork, a folk art gallery with crafts from different regions of Peru, and the Pinacoteca, which is the most accessible collection of Peruvian painting in Lima, with works ranging from the 19th to the 21st century. Admission is completely free, and the building itself, constructed in 1929 as the bank’s headquarters, is of high architectural quality.
It is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
For pre-Hispanic archaeology in Miraflores: Huaca Pucllana
Huaca Pucllana is not a conventional museum but an active archaeological site with a site museum integrated into the visit. A 25-meter pyramid built by the Lima culture between the 5th and 8th centuries is surrounded by apartment buildings and avenues in Miraflores, creating one of the most striking contrasts between ancient and modern Lima. The guided visit lasts between one and a half and two hours. The nighttime visit, with the pyramid illuminated, has its own atmosphere.
Daytime admission costs 15 soles. Nighttime admission costs 17 soles. It is open every day except Tuesday.
For colonial Lima history: San Francisco convent and catacombs
The San Francisco complex in the historic center has Lima’s most representative baroque façade, cloisters with 17th-century Sevillian tiles, a library with 25,000 colonial volumes, and catacombs where more than 25,000 people were buried between the 17th and early 19th centuries. The geometric bone pits beneath the church are the most distinctive experience offered by any religious site in Lima. The guided visit lasts about 45 minutes.
Admission costs 15 soles for adults. It is open daily except Tuesday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
For colonial religious art: Lima Cathedral
The Cathedral on Plaza Mayor has stood since 1535. It has 14 side chapels, one of the most elaborate choir stalls in colonial Latin American architecture, and the remains of Francisco Pizarro in a crypt confirmed by forensic analysis in 1977. The religious art museum inside includes Cusco School paintings, liturgical goldwork, and the original 17th-century sacristy. The bamboo-reinforced wooden structure used after the 1746 earthquake to make the building more resistant to seismic activity is a technical detail that guides explain and that changes how visitors understand the building.
Admission to the museum costs 30 soles for foreign adults. It is open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from 1:00 p.m.
To understand contemporary Peru: the Museum of the Nation
The Museum of the Nation in the district of San Borja hosts the Yuyanapaq exhibition, a photographic display created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that documents the twenty years of political violence between 1980 and 2000. It is the most honest and challenging cultural experience in Lima and the one that best completes the picture of Peru for those who want to understand the country beyond archaeology. Admission is free.
It is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
For Dominican religious history: Santo Domingo convent
The Santo Domingo convent in the historic center holds the remains of Peru’s three most important canonized saints: Saint Rose of Lima, Saint Martin de Porres, and Saint John Macías. It features cloisters with Sevillian tiles from 1604, the library where composer José Bernardo Alcedo wrote the national anthem in 1821, and the chapter house where the University of San Marcos was founded in 1551, the first university in the Americas. Admission costs 5 soles.
It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
For pre-Hispanic goldwork with context: the Gold Museum
The Gold Museum in the district of Surco has funerary masks, pectorals, and ritual objects from the Moche, Chimú, and Lambayeque cultures alongside a collection of more than 20,000 historical weapons from different cultures around the world. It is worth knowing before visiting that in 2001 a metallurgical study determined that a significant portion of the metal pieces were reproductions, which led to a controversy that the museum addressed with revisions and updated curation. Being aware of this context makes the visit more interesting.
Admission costs 40 soles for adults. It is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
For pre-Hispanic history in the historic center: MUCEN and Casa Concha
MUCEN has already been described above. Casa Concha in Cusco, not Lima, is worth mentioning here because many travelers visit it as preparation for Machu Picchu: it houses the archaeological pieces repatriated from Yale after the controversy involving Bingham, making its collection the most direct complement to a visit to the citadel.
How to combine museums in one or two days in Lima
With one day in Lima, the most efficient combination is the historic center in the morning, which allows you to see Plaza Mayor, the Cathedral, the San Francisco convent, and MUCEN in a three- to four-hour walking route, and the Larco Museum in the afternoon with dinner at its restaurant.
With two days in Lima, the second day can be dedicated to Huaca Pucllana in the morning, the Miraflores boardwalk to Barranco in the afternoon, and the Santo Domingo convent if there is time before the flight.
The Museum of the Nation fits well as an afternoon addition in either plan for those who want that contemporary dimension of Peru.