Lima

Beneath the Convento de San Francisco in Lima's historic centre there are catacombs holding the remains of roughly 70,000 people — arranged, in some chambers, into geometric patterns of femurs and skulls. Above ground, the library holds 25,000 volumes, some from the 16th century. The baroque church above both is one of the finest in South America. Most visitors arrive for the catacombs and leave having quietly reconsidered the entire building. Allow two hours and go in the morning before the tour groups arrive. Visit this afternoon to see the catacombs and baroque library in the day's remaining light.

Lima's historic centre is far grander than most visitors expect. Plaza Mayor at its heart is flanked by the Government Palace, the Cathedral, and the Archbishop's Palace — the last with extraordinary carved wooden balconies that the Spanish brought as a style from Moorish Andalusia and Lima's craftsmen made entirely their own. Come on a weekday morning when the bureaucratic crowd fills the surrounding streets with lunch traffic and the colonial architecture can be seen without competition. The square itself was the centre of the Spanish viceroyalty of South America — which is to say, for two hundred years, one of the most powerful places in the world. This afternoon, explore Plaza Mayor and the Archbishop's Palace before evening settles over the city.

The cliffs at Miraflores drop 70 metres to the Pacific and the thermals are so reliable that commercial tandem paragliding runs year-round, seven days a week. You launch from a strip of grass above Larcomar, and within thirty seconds you are hanging over the ocean watching surfers at La Herradura below. It takes twelve minutes and costs less than a mid-range lunch. The operators at Parque Raimondi near the cliff edge have been doing this long enough to be completely, reassuringly bored by it. Today's sunny skies and reliable thermals make this the perfect afternoon for a tandem flight over the ocean.