Plaza Mayor de Lima: Where Lima Suddenly Felt Suspiciously Safe

Lima and I had a complicated relationship.

There were parts of the city where walking around with thousands of dollars of camera equipment hanging off my body felt less like travel photography and more like an unsolicited donation program for local entrepreneurs.

I was exploring Lima, Peru on foot, doing what I normally do in unfamiliar cities: walking around with no particularly intelligent plan and seeing what I accidentally discovered.

And then I stumbled into Plaza Mayor de Lima.

Suddenly there were manicured gardens, enormous colonial buildings, police, tourists taking selfies and enough architectural grandeur to make me wonder whether I’d accidentally walked through a portal into an entirely different Lima.

Well, this is fucking nice.

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Everything you need to know before you visit Plaza Mayor de Lima

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APPARENTLY LIMA HAS A FANCY PART

Plaza Mayor de Lima, also called the Main Square of Lima or Plaza de Armas, sits right in the middle of Lima’s historic center.

And “main square” isn’t some tourism department exaggeration.

This is basically where Lima started.

The Spanish founded Lima around this spot in the 1500s, and over the centuries everyone apparently agreed that if they were going to build something ridiculously important, they should put it right fucking here.

The Government Palace is here.

The Cathedral of Lima is here.

The Archbishop’s Palace is here.

The Municipal Palace is here.

There’s a giant bronze fountain in the middle.

And surrounding all of it is some seriously beautiful Spanish colonial architecture that made the whole place feel considerably more European than I expected to randomly encounter while wandering around Peru.

Apparently Lima had been hiding the good china.

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MY PERSONAL LIMA SAFE SPACE

What I remember most about Plaza Mayor wasn’t actually any individual building.

It was the feeling.

I’d spent enough time walking around Lima that my internal travel radar had occasionally whispered:

Maybe don’t stand here holding an expensive camera like a fucking idiot.

Then I walked into the Lima Main Square and everything changed.

Families were hanging out.

Tourists were wandering around.

People were eating.

Police were visible.

And my camera could finally come out without me simultaneously developing an evacuation strategy.

Luxury.

It was probably the first place in Lima where I genuinely relaxed and just wandered around taking pictures without constantly wondering whether my situational awareness needed its own situational awareness.

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THEY USED TO EXECUTE PEOPLE HERE, SO THAT’S NICE

Of course, because humanity is apparently incapable of having a beautiful public square without eventually doing something horrible in it, Plaza Mayor has had several previous careers.

It has been used as a marketplace.

Bullfights happened here.

Public executions happened here.

So historically, the Main Square of Lima was basically a shopping mall, sporting arena and execution chamber rolled into one convenient downtown location.

Today there are flowers.

Progress.

Although if historic Lima’s relationship with dead people interests you, just start walking.

That’s basically how I ended up at the nearby Catacombs of Lima, where an innocent decision to walk into a beautiful yellow church somehow ended with me underground staring at the remains of approximately 25,000 dead people.

Because apparently Lima likes to ease you into things.

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JUST START WALKING

This was ultimately my favorite thing about Plaza Mayor.

The square itself is beautiful, but it’s really the center of a much larger historic area.

I didn’t need an itinerary.

I didn’t need a tour bus.

I didn’t need someone holding a tiny flag while explaining colonial architecture through a headset.

I just walked.

The Cathedral of Lima dominates one side. The Government Palace occupies another. Ornate wooden balconies hang over surrounding streets, old churches appear between buildings, and basically every direction offers another excuse to point a camera at something.

And, as demonstrated by my accidental discovery of those 25,000 bodies beneath Lima, wandering aimlessly around the historic center can get interesting surprisingly quickly.

This is my preferred form of tourism.

No itinerary. Questionable decisions. Unexpected corpses.

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WHERE IS PLAZA MAYOR DE LIMA?

For anyone Googling Plaza Mayor de Lima coordinates because apparently typing the name into Google Maps wasn’t adventurous enough, the plaza is in the historic center of Lima.

You’ll also see it called Plaza de Armas de Lima.

Same place.

Different name.

Because international travel wasn’t confusing enough already.

More importantly, once you’re there, you really don’t need to overcomplicate this.

Walk around the square.

Photograph the architecture.

Then pick a street and keep going.

Worst-case scenario, you see some beautiful colonial buildings.

Best-case scenario, you accidentally discover something completely ridiculous.

That’s basically how Destinations Unknown works.

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COME FOR THE ARCHITECTURE, STAY FOR THE REDUCED ANXIETY

Plaza Mayor isn’t somewhere you need half a day, hiking boots, specialized equipment and a detailed tactical plan.

It’s a square.

A really fucking beautiful square, surrounded by some of Lima’s most important historic buildings.

But after wandering through parts of Lima where my brain occasionally questioned the wisdom of my life choices, stumbling into this giant, polished, photogenic plaza was unexpectedly refreshing.

I could wander.

I could photograph.

I could actually look at the buildings instead of constantly scanning everything around me.

And then I could wander off again and discover what other weird shit Lima had hidden down the next street.

For a little while, Lima and I were friends.

Sometimes that’s all you need from a fucking plaza.