Lima City & Catacombs Guided Day Tour with Mirabus

3.05

(20 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

We were already halfway through Miraflores when the guide waved us over—“Look left, that’s Huaca Pucllana.” I’ll admit, I’d barely had my coffee and suddenly there’s this ancient pyramid just sitting in the middle of the city. The bus was open up top, so you could feel that salty Pacific breeze mixing with the smell of street food—grilled corn, mostly. Someone behind me was trying to snap a photo but kept laughing because the wind kept blowing her hair into the shot.

Rolling past the Magic Water Circuit, our guide joked about how it holds some world record for fountains—I didn’t catch all of it, honestly, but you could see kids running around in sprays of water. Then we hit downtown Lima. The buildings got taller and older all at once: neoclassical facades, balconies with peeling paint, people selling churros on corners. We hopped off near Plaza San Martin; there was a guy playing guitar under a statue and pigeons everywhere. Our group wandered through pedestrian streets—Presidential Palace on one side, cathedral bells echoing somewhere in the distance.

The real surprise was inside the Church of San Francisco. It’s grand upstairs—gold altars and paintings—but then you go down into the catacombs and everything changes. Cool air, stone corridors lined with bones in patterns I still can’t quite picture without shivering a little. Our guide whispered stories about old Lima families buried here; it felt oddly peaceful, not spooky like I expected. When we came back up into sunlight, someone said they needed a pisco sour after all that history—and yeah, I couldn’t argue.