Monumental and Artistic Callao

Overview

Callao is one of the most historically and economically important places in Peru, shaped for centuries by its port and its close relationship with the sea. This private tour visits the Real Felipe Fortress and the colorful, art-filled Callao Monumental district.

Callao is Peru's main port city, immediately adjacent to Lima but with its own distinct character. This private tour visits the Real Felipe Fortress, a well-known military structure built to defend against pirate attacks during the viceroyalty, and then Callao Monumental, a revitalized area full of real street art, music, and food.

Highlights

• Real Felipe Fortress Explore this real colonial-era military fortress, including its artillery park and historic buildings.
• Callao Monumental Walk through this revitalized district's colorful street art, starting at the historic Ronald building.
• Plaza Gálvez See local urban art and culture around this real Callao square.

What Stops Does This Tour Make?

A popular starting point — every Voyzo itinerary is fully customizable, so we'll shape the order and stops around your group.

Important Information

Frequently Asked Questions

About This Tour

Callao is one of the most historically and economically important places in Peru, shaped for centuries by its port and its close relationship with the sea. This private tour visits the Real Felipe Fortress and the colorful, art-filled Callao Monumental district. Callao is Peru's main port city, immediately adjacent to Lima but with its own distinct character. This private tour visits the Real Felipe Fortress, a well-known military structure built to defend against pirate attacks during the viceroyalty, and then Callao Monumental, a revitalized area full of real street art, music, and food.

For most of the colonial era, Callao was the single most important port on South America's Pacific coast — nearly everything shipped between Spain and the Viceroyalty of Peru passed through its harbor, which made the city both wealthy and a constant target. Centuries of raids and threats from pirates and privateers, going back as far as Francis Drake's 16th-century incursions along this coast, meant Callao's defenses were a recurring concern for the Spanish crown long before the fortress that stands there today.

That fortress, Real Felipe, was built between 1747 and 1774, commissioned by the viceroy after a massive 1746 earthquake and tsunami destroyed much of old Callao and its earlier fortifications. Designed by the French engineer Luis Godin in the star-fort style associated with the military engineer Vauban, Real Felipe is laid out as an irregular pentagon with five projecting bastions and walls as thick as four meters — one of the largest defensive structures the Spanish built anywhere in their American colonies. It's still standing today, now home to Peru's Naval Museum, with its artillery park, parade grounds, and original colonial-era buildings open to visit.

Callao Monumental, the second stop on this tour, tells a completely different and much more recent story. The same port wealth that built Callao's elegant colonial architecture eventually collapsed along with the port's old monopoly, and this historic district spent decades as one of greater Lima's most neglected and crime-affected areas — not somewhere most visitors would have considered walking through. That began changing in the early-to-mid 2010s, when a local initiative called Fugaz, founded by the activist Angie Pelosi, started restoring a handful of city blocks, turning old colonial buildings into workshops, galleries, and exhibition spaces for local artists.

The result today is a compact, walkable district of murals and street art painted by both Peruvian and visiting international artists, alongside restored colonial buildings, small restaurants, and public squares like Plaza Gálvez — a real, documented urban revitalization rather than a staged tourist attraction, and a genuinely different side of greater Lima from the capital's more polished neighborhoods.