Miraflores Park, A Belmond Hotel

Lima ends at a cliff. Along Miraflores the city stops at the edge of a high bluff of sand and gravel, and below it the Costa Verde road and the grey Pacific run along the shore. Miraflores Park, A Belmond Hotel, stands on the Malecón de la Reserva, the clifftop promenade, and its sea-facing rooms look straight out over that drop. It is the Lima address of the group that runs the Monasterio in Cusco and the Sanctuary Lodge at Machu Picchu, and many travellers stay here on their way to or from the Andes.

History

The hotel was built in the 1990s, when Miraflores was establishing itself as the main district for visitors to the city, and it joined Orient-Express Hotels, the group that took the name Belmond in 2014. LVMH bought Belmond in 2019. In Peru the group also runs the Palacio Nazarenas in Cusco, Hotel Rio Sagrado in the Sacred Valley, Las Casitas del Colca and the Andean Explorer train, so the Lima hotel often serves as the first and last night of a longer journey. Its concierges spend much of their time arranging flights to Cusco and the transfers that go with them.

Architecture and design

The building is a modern tower set back from the clifftop behind a strip of park, and its interest lies in the outlook it gives on the ocean. Height is the asset here: from the upper floors the Pacific fills the windows, and the traffic of the Costa Verde, far below, is out of sight and mostly out of earshot.

Rooms and suites

Rooms face either the Pacific or the city and the park. From the sea side the view runs along the coast to Barranco and the headland of the Morro Solar at Chorrillos, and on clear evenings the sun sets into the ocean. Lima's skies are grey for much of the southern winter, under the coastal mist the city calls garúa, and the summer months, from December to April, bring the clearest views.

Dining

Tragaluz, the hotel's restaurant, serves Peruvian cooking, with ceviches, tiraditos and dishes of the coast and the Andes. Lima's restaurant scene lies within easy reach for evenings out, with many of the city's best-known kitchens in Miraflores, San Isidro and Barranco, and few cities reward a dinner reservation as well.

Wellness

The pool is on the roof, at the edge of the building, with nothing between it and the Pacific horizon. The spa offers massages and treatments, and there is a fitness room. Early mornings on the Malecón below are busy with runners and cyclists, and the clifftop path makes an easy route for exercise.

Weddings and events

The hotel has meeting rooms for conferences and private dinners, and the rooftop is used for receptions and cocktail evenings with the ocean behind.

Location

The Malecón is a chain of clifftop parks running the length of Miraflores. Larcomar, a shopping and dining centre built into the cliff face beside Parque Salazar, is a short walk along the promenade, and further on lies the Parque del Amor, with Víctor Delfín's sculpture of two lovers, El Beso, unveiled in 1993. Paragliders take off from the clifftop near the Parque Raimondi and drift along the cliffs on the afternoon breeze. Inland, Huaca Pucllana, a great adobe pyramid built by the Lima culture long before the Incas, stands among the apartment blocks of the district, with a restaurant on its terrace. Barranco, Lima's bohemian quarter of old summer villas, galleries and bars, is about ten minutes south by car. Jorge Chávez International Airport in Callao is forty minutes to an hour away, depending on traffic, and the historic centre, listed by UNESCO, about half an hour. For a luxury hotel in Lima, few addresses put the Pacific this close.