Why now
Prime time in December: 23°C days, dry.
The winter mist (garúa) sits on the city for months and never quite rains, which puts off visitors but changes nothing about the food; in summer the Limeños leave for the southern beaches at weekends and the city is calmer. The famous restaurants need booking weeks ahead in any season.
Best months here: January, February, November. December is not one of them — the label above measures the month against a fixed bar, not against the rest of the year here. Daytime highs, sea temperature and rainy days from three years of Open-Meteo reanalysis; a rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, which is the WMO threshold and not the same as "it drizzled".
The place
Lima is a desert capital of ten million on a cliff above the Pacific, grey for half the year under the coastal mist and sharp and bright the other half. The reason to come is the table: cevicherías, chifas, anticucho carts and a few tasting-menu restaurants booked out months ahead. It suits people who eat seriously and treat the sightseeing as the walk between meals.
What you can do
- 01Eat ceviche at lunch, never dinner: cevicherías buy fish in the morning and most close by four.
- 02Walk the Malecón from Miraflores to Barranco, then down the Bajada de los Baños to the sea.
- 03Spend a morning at Museo Larco in Pueblo Libre, including the open storerooms of ceramics.
- 04See the San Francisco catacombs and the Plaza Mayor, then eat chifa on Calle Capón in the Barrio Chino.
- 05Buy anticuchos from an evening cart, and drink a pisco sour at the Gran Hotel Bolívar on Plaza San Martín.
Where to stay · neighbourhoods
Stay in Miraflores for convenience or Barranco for evenings; both are safe to walk. Centro is for daytime only, and the airport hotels are for early flights and nothing else.
Unusual things
- ◦Presbítero Maestro, the 19th-century monumental cemetery, with evening guided tours among the marble.
- ◦Monumental Callao, a block of galleries and studios in the old port's tenements, best on a guided visit.
- ◦Casa de la Literatura Peruana inside the former Desamparados railway station behind the Government Palace.
Day trips
Flight options
Routes come from OpenFlights (historical) and a 2026 route reference compiled from public timetables. Durations are the published schedule where we have it, otherwise a block-time model fitted on measured nonstop flights. Verify schedules with the airline before booking.
Flight.Deals has not measured this route from Vienna yet, but it does measure Lima from Frankfurt (€897 typical) and Milan (€794 typical).
Entry requirements · IT passport
Source: passport-index-data, March 2026 (coarse indicator), covering 258 of our 268 destinations for each of 199 passports. Always confirm with the destination's official site.
Airports
Distances are centre to airport derived · nonstop counts are our route reference for 2026, not every flight that exists.
Local transport
- Airport to city
- Airport Express bus, 45 min, ~€7
- Car needed?
- No — walkable or good public transport
- Getting around
- App rides are the practical way around; the Metropolitano bus runs down Paseo de la República between Barranco, Miraflores and the centre. Jorge Chávez airport is in Callao, 45 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes depending on traffic; use an official taxi counter or an app from the terminal.
- Clock
- 6 hours behind Vienna (America/Lima) derived
- Daylight
- 12.8 hours of daylight in December · sunrise 05:38, sunset 18:28 derived
- Currency
- PEN
Good to know
Phone snatching on buses and in the centre is the main risk; keep valuables out of sight and use app rides rather than street taxis at night.
Alternatives at a similar price
Whole trip per person for 3 days from Vienna in December, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
Dubai
Doha
AlUla
Oaxaca
Hong Kong
Guangzhou