6/16 - Lima

Given our late arrival, we had allowed ourselves this as a "free day" to recover...especially since our schedule has us being ready to start a bus trip the next day at 4:00 am.

We hired a tour guide to show us some highlights of Lima.

We had a group of 7 for our total tour. This included us (Dave and Kathleen), my brother and sister-in-law (Rick and Phyllis), two friends of ours from Naples (and ex P&G), and one friend of theirs.

This 7th person had a flight delay that allowed her to chat with someone who knew Lima, and who recommended that we visit a private collector's exhibit, so we adjusted our tour this day to add this exhibit.

The collection is called the "Poli Museum." This was put together by an individual, Enrico Poli. The collection is impressive, occupying about 7 rooms of their house...essentually the whole downstairs.

I suggest that you google the term "Poli Museum." What is interesting are the ratings from visitors. They are either "5's" or "1's." The people who give the place the highest ratings have comments saying "if you can only see one museum in Peru, have it be this one." The people who give the place the lowest ratings say, "this is not a museum, but a private collection obtained by buying items from looters...Poli has thus taken treasures that rightfully should belong to the Peruvian people."

Both of these viewpoints are valid, so you have to decide for yourself whether or not to support this "museum" by visiting it. For example, one room has a collection that includes about 55% of the items collected from one tomb, so this collection has more from this site than all the other museums put together. National Geographics had a multi-page spread concerning this finding, with all of the photos coming from the Poli collection.

We were not allowed to take any photos in the museum.