Better than we thought

La Merced
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We only had one whole day in Lima. Lots of people on previous trips had complained that it was not nice, so our stay had been limited to one day. But we loved it. Staying near the Plaza de Armas, we found the area to very lively and colourful. The Plaza de Armas is beautiful with yellow buildings on 2 sides,the presidents residence on another and the cathedral of course. The yellow buildings would once have been government buildings but now they were full of restaurants and shops. There were tanks stationed around the presidents residence, cute little ones.

Monastery of San Francisco
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On the Saturday night when we arrived we found a lovely local fair going on to the north of the plaza. There were fridge magnets of corn and fruit and animals, lucky dips, and little stalls selling corn and egg and cheese. We had dinner that evening at the nunnery on Ucayali. You had to ring the bell to get in and were greeted by a smiling french nun. It was a beautiful building with wooden ceilings with beams and beautiful doors and stair cases. But the decor was unfortunate. It looked like they would be using the tables and chairs for bingo in the morning. Very cheap, green and pink. Being french, they served beautifully soft bread, which alone made the visit worth while. We had been eating so much stodgy bead in South America so far. The food was very good but it was an expensive night out. And it did feel a little awkward as we were the only ones there and after dessert the nuns sang Ave Maria for us. It was lovely.

Plaza Mayor
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We spent most of our day in Lima whizzing around museums. These are listed under `Things to do´. Lots of taxi rides but no trouble from the drivers. But here we would like to talk about the Monastery of San Francisco. We were obliged to take a tour and our guide was sober and bored looking but he knew the banter and prattled on about the and construction of the building. The first highlight of the visit was the library. You were not allowed to wander around like the Recoleta in Arequipa but it was fantastic all the same. There were 2 spiral staircases in the middle leading up to the gallery. There were skylights used for light before the days of electricity that cast a mysterious glow on the room. And there were 2 illuminated books on display, very big. The second highlight was the catacombs. Bit damp and smelly but an adventure through the narrow passages and low doorways. Archaeologists had had a lot of fun there. In order to count the number of bodies found they had stacked bones into stalls along the wall. In one round area they had arranged skulls and bones into a circular pattern. Ghoulish really.