The Original Highlights of Lima - Private Half Day Tour
4.9
33 Ratings
Lima
Experience the best of Lima in just a few hours! This private half-day tour takes you through colonial Lima, modern districts, and the bohemian seaside town of Barranco. Don't miss the opportunity to indulge in traditional Peruvian food along the way!
Duration: 5 hours
Cancellation: 1 day learn more
Highlights
  • Plaza San Martin - Our first stop on the historic city-center portion of our tour. Here we recognize one of Peru’s most well-known liberators, Jose de San Martin.
  • Museo Convento San Francisco y Catacumbas - Also known as the St. Francis Monastery in English, the church and convent were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1991. We will briefly observe the convent from outside as well as have the opportunity to step into the church and observe the surroundings. A full tour of the Convent and Catacumbas is not offered on this highlights itinerary.
  • Plaza de Armas (Plaza Mayor) - Here we will spend a few minutes in the heart of Lima. The Plaza de Armas is home to the Presidential Palace, Arch Bishop’s Palace, Cathedral and Municipal buildings and can oftentimes be a lively place filled with people and various forms of entertainment.
  • Huaca Pucllana - A brief stop to observe Lima’s most famous solid pyramid used as a ceremonial site for the Lima culture during the years of 200 to 700 AD. A full tour of the site is not taken, only observed from the outside.
  • El Parque del Amor - An artistic park located on the sea-side cliffs of Miraflores. Observe the para gliders sailing over head and local young couples strolling along the paths dedicated to lovers everywhere. A great place to snap a quick photo of you and a loved one!
  • Morro Solar - Sitting at roughly 251 meters above sea level, you will get a wonderful view of the Pacific Coastline, Chorrillos Bay an the Shanty towns below. Often overlooked on other tours, this can be the highlight of ours!
  • Barranco - Known for its bohemian culture and festivities. Streets are often filled with local vendors, musicians and performers, and always a favorite with guests, are the bright and colorful works of graffiti art throughout the area.
What's Included
  • Local guide
  • Private tour
  • Hotel pickup and drop-off (from districts of San Isidro, Miraflores & Barranco - all others please see: Exclusions)
  • All taxes, fees and handling charges
  • Transport by air-conditioned private vehicle
What's Not Included
  • Gratuities
  • Lunch
  • When tipping, please do so separately for the guide and driver.
Additional Information

For the traveler who only has a few hours to spare, this tour, coined ‘The Perfect Snapshot of Lima’ by previous guests, covers it all. Compare and contrast colonial Lima, with the modern districts of San Isidro and Miraflores. Have fun perusing the bohemian seaside town of Barranco. From high above the Pacific Ocean you will look down upon the iconic ‘Green Coast’ as it boasts both contemporary city life with rudimentary shanty towns; you won’t believe how much ground we will cover in just five short hours. If you would like to grab some lunch on the go, featuring traditional Peruvian style sandwiches and exotic juices, just let your guide know. It may be that little extra add-in that makes your half day or lay over tour just perfect!

  • Comfortable walking shoes are recommended
  • When tipping, please do so separately for the guide and driver.
  • At time of booking, Cruise ship passengers must provide the following information at time of booking: ship name, docking time, disembarkation time and re-boarding time.
  • Refunds will not be issued if tour/activity is missed due to late or non-arrival of cruise ship.
Location
Plaza San Martin
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.9
(33 Ratings)
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Courtney_o
Mar 20, 2024
Absolutely Amazing - Koky and Maricarmen were absolutely amazing! I highly recommend this excursion! My entire family loved every minute of the trip.
Review provided by Viator
Kelly_c
Jan 6, 2024
Wonderful tour - Blanca and Corky gave us a wonderful tour of the city. A lot of history, art and food. What a beautiful city!
Review provided by Viator
Ana
Oct 16, 2023
The Best Lima Tour - First, I have to tell you what a great company this is. In booking many tours in different cities of Peru, I mixed up my dates and booked our tour one day before we arrived in Lima. There were some text messages and a bit of confusion on my part before I realized my mistake. I apologized profusely and the company was kind enough to reschedule our tour with a minimal up charge. Therefore we met our guide Nathaly and our driver Coqui at our hotel. They picked us up in a new very comfortable minivan that was super clean. We started in the neighborhood of Barranco since our hotel was in the area we made many stops and the ability to get out and walk while keeping all our luggage in the van under the watchful eye of our driver Coqui. We visited areas with street art as well as a few galleries. We went to a Plaza mayor and to the top of the mountain to see the Cross that lights up at night as well as the small church that is there and de Christo statue large but yet much smaller than the one in Rio. The Vista was spectacular and a great spot to gather in the view of the city. We went to visit the pyramids that are located in the city of Lima, which is astonishing and was built by the same Incas that built Machu Picchu. we went to a Plaza San Martin, as well as the Park of Love with a beautiful statue of The Kids!!. The weather was perfect temperature for exploring the city! We were very comfortable the whole time, and our guide had so much knowledge of the area and history. It was great that she is from Lima with a very interesting past, she personally demonstrated the Asian fusion that occurred in Peru in the 1800s. We even saw a few people protesting which coming from the US doesn’t seem that unusual anymore. We only had one day to spend exploring Lima and using this company we made the best use of our time and thoroughly enjoyed our tour. They also took us to our next hotel, which was at the airport since our flight left at four in the morning the next day. The traffic was terrible, but it gave us an opportunity to talk and share life stories with our driver, and allowed us to realize that we have more in common than different on thoughts of raising children and our complaints of “young people’s work ethics “just like old people like to do… Ha ha ha!! The owner of the company is in New York, and she was very responsive with text messaging in order to make sure that we were taken care of. She should be very proud of her staff in Lima! They speak very highly of her and feel blessed to be working for her company ! Our driver’s daughter is beginning University and hopes to one day be a tour guide with this exceptional company. I strongly encourage you to use this company. We got much more than we expected and learned more than I could have from the encyclopedia. I hope to come back to Peru, since it truly is a beautiful diverse country with lovely people!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Maggie594
Oct 2, 2023
Great Lima Overview! - We had a private guide and driver. No tourist should try to navigate Lima traffic on their own! We went to all of the Lima districts, learned a lot along the way, were given a brief lunch break at a wonderful tapas spot, and accomplished far more through this half day orientation than we would have on our own. Very knowledgeable guide and competent driver with clean vehicle. Highly recommend.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
P3346yzjosep
Jun 26, 2023
Integrity tourism what an amazing way to see Lima and the surrounding areas - Nati and Coqui were an incredible source of local knowledge. The areas we visited, were well selected and we arrived online or even sheas of time with plenty of time to walk around and enjoy. The online pick up from our hotel and in route to Chorrillos, for the amazing views and historic places. We also visited Barrancos, San Isidro and certainly not the least, Lima city center where e visited the Peruvian government building and the San Francisco cathedral with a exclusive personal tour of the catacombs from Nati.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Deborah_m
Mar 19, 2023
Excellent tour of Lima - Marco was a terrific guide. His English is excellent. He was very flexible and allowed us to spend time in the places we wanted to go on the private tour he gave us.
Review provided by Viator
Tracys123
Jan 21, 2023
Discovering the diversity of Lima. - Gaby and our driver were excellent. They arrived on time and from the moment we met there was an instant rapport. The tour was very informative and very interesting. This company have been a pleasure to deal with and I totally recommend them to anyone visiting Lima.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Domdom5565
Sep 21, 2022
BEST DAY EVER WITH THE BEST GUIDES! - This was the absolute BEST EXPERIENCE EVER. If you are coming to Peru and want to see the city and districts of Lima, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND everyone take this tour. We had Natty(Natyle) and Jorge (Coqui) as our guides for our first time trip here in Peru. They were such an awesome team, we’re so kind and SO FUNNY! We couldn’t believe how much fun we had together and how awesome the day turned out to be! 100000/10 recommend and DEFINITELY ASK FOR THEM! I promise you won’t be disappointed and they are so educated and funny! Thank you so much for the best day ever and for taking a billion photos of us! Can’t wait to come back to visit and do another tour with them!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Stephent1662
Aug 31, 2022
Great Intro to Lima - We only had one weekend so we paired this on one day with a gastronomy tour on the second day and it really worked out well. Our guide was super nice, very knowledgeable, and the whole trip was quite well organized. We saw many things, got given a lot of tips on how to maximize our Lima experience, all in all a great experience.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Lawrence
Aug 10, 2022
Great tour for Highlights of Lima - We had a wonderful half day tour of Lima that included all the highlights of this city. We felt like we got a good sampling of the different neighborhoods. Nataly, our guide, and Koky, our driver were both knowledgeable friendly and excellent English.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
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up to 15 guests
2 Adult
June 2024
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