Miraflores is a district of Lima that sits on the edge of cliffs above the Pacific, and its entire logic is turned towards that edge. Kilometres of promenade along the clifftop, parks strung one after another, and below - beaches you descend to with serious intent, not by accident.

This is where Andrés Roca Rey comes from, born in 1996, who studied at the local Carmelitas school before leaving for Spain at 14 for a career in bullfighting. His grandfather ran the Plaza de Acho in neighbouring Rímac - one of the oldest arenas in the world. "It motivates me to come back to Lima. It is my city, those are my people," he says, and he returns whenever the American season takes a break.

But the city does not belong to him. On the stretch of promenade called Malecón Cisneros stands the Park of Love, opened on Valentine's Day, with the enormous sculpture "The Kiss" by Peruvian artist Víctor Delfín and mosaic walls covered in verse. Something that sounds twee on paper and works on the ground because the backdrop is an ocean.

What makes this district different from any other seaside neighbourhood is a pyramid in the middle of the buildings. Huaca Pucllana is a ceremonial centre of the Lima culture, built between the fourth and eighth centuries, around 25 metres high, made of thousands of small mud bricks. It is not on the outskirts, it is not under a canopy for tourists - it stands among avenues and apartment blocks, and people walk past it on their way to work.

Imagine that here. Imagine a site of that rank surviving sixty years of urbanisation without somebody "tidying it up" with concrete.

Kennedy Park is the informal centre, known for the colony of cats that lives in it. Raimondi Park has a lighthouse and a launch point for paragliders. Maria Reiche Park is named after the German researcher who spent decades studying the Nazca lines. Chino Park is small, with a pergola, a bridge, a pond and granite lions brought from China.

The food is a reason in itself. Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura's Maido restaurant was named the best in the world in 2025 - Nikkei cuisine, Japanese technique over Peruvian ingredients. At Huaca Pucllana you eat looking at the illuminated pyramid. And at La Lucha you eat a chicharrón sandwich with sweet potato, which locals consider more important than the other two.

If you want to sleep with a view of the ocean, Belmond Miraflores Park sits right on the cliff edge. If you want something with history, Quinta Miraflores was built at the beginning of the twentieth century by the Italian architect Lidio Mongilardi and was declared Peruvian cultural heritage in 1987.

A destination twelve hours' flight from Europe, with twenty-five metres of archaeology in the middle of the traffic. It is not cheap to get there, but it is not a place you will find in every other catalogue either.