Give Arequipa three days. Spend the first in the historic centre on Santa Catalina, the cathedral and the Juanita mummy, the second on the Colca canyon, and keep an afternoon for Yanahuara and a picantería lunch. The centre is compact and walkable, the altitude is gentle, and most of it closes by 18:00.
Peru's second city sits at 2,335 m in a desert bowl under three volcanoes, built almost entirely from white volcanic sillar. It is a walking city of two or three days, and the gentlest acclimatisation stop between Lima and Cusco.
A walled convent covering roughly 20,000 square metres, painted cobalt and ochre, with its own streets and squares inside. Allow two hours, and go late on a Tuesday or Wednesday when it stays open until 19:00 and the lanes empty out.
The Ice Maiden, an Inca girl sacrificed on Ampato and found frozen in 1995, is shown in a chilled case on a guided visit. From January to April she rests in the dark for conservation and a second mummy takes her place.
Andean condors ride the morning thermals out of a canyon about 3,270 m deep. Day tours leave Arequipa around 03:00 and return after dark; two days based in Chivay is the better trip. The Autocolca ticket is S/70 for foreign adults.
Three sides of sillar arcades around a palm-filled square, with the cathedral filling the fourth. Rebuilt after the 1844 fire and the 1868 earthquake, it opens its museum Monday to Saturday, 10:00 to 17:00, for S/10.
A small plaza of sillar arches, each one carved with a line written about the city, framing Misti straight ahead. Ten minutes by taxi from the centre and free to stand in. Come for the last hour of light.
The Jesuit church's 1698 front is the high point of Andean baroque carving, with mestizo faces and cantuta flowers cut into white stone. The San Ignacio chapel behind it is painted like a jungle and is the reason to pay in.
A picantería is a lunch-only house of the kind Peru's Ministry of Culture listed as national heritage in 2014. Order chupe de camarones or rocoto relleno, drink chicha de guiñapo, and arrive before 13:00 or expect to queue.
The city's iron-framed market, laid out in aisles of fruit, cheese, medicinal herbs and juice counters. Come early, take a queso helado on the way out, and keep your bag in front of you in the crowded aisles.
Arequipa's oldest quarter, a knot of sillar lanes barely two metres wide, laid out before the Spanish grid reached them. Ten minutes on foot north of the plaza, quietest in the early morning and free to wander.
The Añashuayco quarries are the source of the sillar the city is built from, still cut by hand into blocks and now carved into reliefs along the ravine walls. Half-day tours run from the centre; there is no public transport out there.
Acurio's Arequipa kitchen, regional plates worked up to a tasting finish.
Italian cooking built into the monastery wall, another Acurio project.
Fills a whole side of the Plaza de Armas, rebuilt twice after fire and earthquake.
Andean baroque cut into sillar, with the painted San Ignacio chapel behind it.
A working Carmelite convent whose museum holds the colonial art and silver.
Sillar and brick, with earthquake damage left visible in the dome.
Colonial painting and silver inside a closed Carmelite convent.
Around 3,000 carved boulders across a desert hillside in the Majes valley.
Peruvian craft beer and a short kitchen. The reliable evening in the centre.
Rocoto chilli stuffed with beef, egg and cheese, baked with potato gratin.
Frozen milk and cinnamon custard. There is no cheese in it.
River prawn chowder with milk, potato and egg. A Friday dish.
Pork stewed overnight in chicha de guiñapo, eaten at Sunday breakfast.
Boiled potato under a cold huacatay, peanut and chilli sauce.
Broad beans, fresh cheese, olives and rocoto, dressed cold as a starter.
Fresh cheese melted with rocoto, milk and potato in a clay pot.
Dark maize beer, poured by the jar in every picantería.
Water fights, yunza dances and district parades through the month.
The national pisco sour day, marked across the bars of the centre.
Palm Sunday processions leave Santa Catalina and Santa Teresa.
Pilgrimage to the Polobaya sanctuary, with the main mass on 1 May.
Peru's independence holidays. Expect closures and full buses.
The 1540 founding, marked with fireworks and the Asunción procession.
The anniversary-week parade, and the biggest street event of the year.
Families spend the day at the cemeteries with food and brass bands.
Eight kilometres northwest of the centre and the only airport serving the city. Fifteen to twenty-five minutes by taxi.
The long-distance bus terminal, south of the centre. Overnight coaches run to Lima, Cusco and Puno; book at the counter or online.
Shared minivans leave the terminal through the morning for about S/15 and take roughly three hours to Chivay, the Colca base.
InDriver, Cabify and Uber all work here, with thinner cover outside the centre. In a street taxi, agree the fare before you get in.
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