La Plaza Mayor

Saturday we headed back to see the famous Plaza Mayor in the center of Historic Lima.  It started off ealry because we had a busy day ahead. We started in the Government Palace of Peru where Ollanta Humala the current President of the Republic resides. It was their equivalent of the White House. The Palacae was gorgeous and we got to see the gold room modeled after the French palace in Versailles and the Tupac Amaru Room which is where the president gives most of his public speeches.

Next we moved on to the Cathedral of Lima. It was gigantic inside and we we learned a lot on the tour of the cathedral too. For example the cathedral only has mass twice a week once on Sunday and once on Saturday morning and does not hold any other sacraments other than Eucharist .Baptisms and weddings are only done in the side chapels. The Cathedrals also had many stations along the sides which depicted many Saints of Peru and the Holy Family. One of the station actually had the finger of one of the saints encased inside a cross. Then we got the see the burial ground beneath the church which held the bodies of many of the Archbishops of Peru and even one Cardinal. The Cathedral was beautiful with beautiful artwork all over the walls and ceiling and all of it extremely detailed and ornate. My favorite part was learning about the Saint Martin de Porres who was a mulatto man who had to overcome many obstacles in his life to move up through the Church and then eventually reach sainthood. Also what was really cool was seeing where Francisco Pizarro was "buried" and the story of how they found his head and the story of his death.


Next was the changing of the guards outside the Palace, because it was flag day in Peru they had a special concert for us. The band of guards played a show of classic marching band songs and and it was really interesting to see and watch. After that we had lunch and moved on to the Convento of San Francisco. This ancient church was built over a catacomb holding over 36,000 remains. The church and convent itself was beautiful with a Harry Potteresque library where the monks would write their books in the daylight because candlelight was too dangerous in the library. Then upstairs they had a very cool choir area with a giant rotating music stand so the whole choir could see the music. Then we went down to the catacombs which were enormous. It was amazing to see all the bones that lie below the church unsuspectingly.

Lastly we moved on the Casa de Aliaga. This house was built in 1535 by Francisco Pizarro's friend Jeronimo Aliaga. Aliaga's family had lived there ever since and it is one of the oldest houses in Lima. Inside the house is gorgeous styled in the Spanish style of the times when it was built it has Sevillan tiles and an amazing Patio with a fountain. They even had there own chapel for the family marriages only for family use. The house is located just to the side of the Government Palace and had been remodelled and rebuilt multiple times due to earthquakes but the always try to keep to the original blueprints. The matriarch of the family is actually going to be turning 106 soon. How interesting is that?