Yes, the biggest Spanish military construction was build in Peru, and you can still visit it, as it is now the nationals Army museum. Today we will talk about Real Felipe fortress.
An impressive construction built between 1747 (a year after the most horrible earthquake of our history) and 1811, made of stones from a nearby island (San Lorenzo) and Calicanto, a cement made of limestone, water, sand, pebbles and, some say, eggs from sea birds.
Its shape looks like a star of 5 points, and it is impressive from all perspectives. It was built to protect us from pirates and “Corsarios”, men looking for the gold and silver of the Inkas that made these territories famous around the world. Spain needed to protect its goldmine, and a fortress was conceived to guards the main port of Spanish South America know as Callao.
The size of this place is 70,000 m2, it is huge!. Used as a military fortress first, became a prison, military school and base, port customs office, and nowadays is the Peruvian Army Museum.
Visit the Real Felipe from Tuesday till Sunday from 9 am till 4 pm, they have guided tours in Spanish and can offer English tours by request. Price per person 10 soles or 3 USD.
At the end of our visit we were very hungry, so we went to the most famous tavern of the old port to try their celebrated “Pan con pejerrey” sandwich of kingfish, it was yummy! Highly recommend if you speak Spanish or are coming with someone that speaks Spanish, as the personal there don’t understand English. The ambiance in the site is fantastic and the most traditional you can spect is like traveling back in time to the 1920s.
This is how our adventure went, we had fun, learned a lot and enjoyed our little adventure in one of the most important destinations within the capital. Would you like to visit this place? Let us know in the comments below if you have constructions or museums like this one in your city, and if you like military museums.
Don’t forget to watch our video about our visit to this site, you can see it here or in our YouTube Channel.
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