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Piura is the capital of the Piura Region in north-western Peru, set on the Piura River just north of the Sechura Desert and not far from the border with Ecuador. Francisco Pizarro founded it in 1532 as San Miguel, the first Spanish city in Peru, and after several moves it settled at its present site by the river in 1588.
Known as the city of eternal heat, Piura has a mestizo culture with Andalusian, African, Chinese and Roma roots. The tondero dance was born in the Alto Piura valley, and the city is known for ceviche made with mackerel, fried plantain chifles, sweet natillas and drinks of algarrobina from the carob trees of the dry forest. Cotton brought from Arizona in the 1860s made the valley rich.
Most visits start at the Plaza de Armas and its cathedral, then head 12 kilometres to Catacaos for silver filigree and straw hats, or east to the potters of Chulucanas. The Pacific coast is close, with the old port of Paita, the long beach at Colán and its 16th-century church.
The main square has been the heart of Piura since the city settled here in 1588, laid out on a Spanish grid around it. At its centre stands a Carrara marble Allegory of Liberty, placed in 1870 under President José Balta and still known locally as La Pola, with the cathedral facing the square.
Built in 1588 and declared a colonial historic monument, the Basilica Cathedral of Saint Michael the Archangel faces the main square between Huancavelica and Tacna streets. It is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Piura, created as a diocese in 1940 and raised to an archdiocese in 1966.
This house on Tacna street is honoured as the birthplace in 1834 of Admiral Miguel Grau, hero of the War of the Pacific, though some accounts place his birth in Paita. Opened as a museum by the Navy in 1964, it shows his belongings, family portraits and a model of the ironclad Huáscar.
This tied-arch bridge carries Avenida Bolognesi across the Piura River between Piura and Castilla. The old bridge of 1967 collapsed in the El Niño floods of 1997 and 1998, killing about 20 people, and the new 130-metre span, rebuilt without river piers in 2000 and 2001, became a city landmark.
This town 12 kilometres from Piura is known worldwide for its gold and silver filigree jewellery, above all the earrings called dormilonas, and for toquilla straw hats woven largely by women. Its old centre is a national historic heritage zone, and its carnival and Holy Week are well known.
Two kilometres from Catacaos, this adobe complex was the main settlement and political centre of the Tallán people of the lower Piura valley. Its main mound of adobe and mud mortar hides walls 1.6 metres thick from two building phases, and it was declared national cultural heritage in 2003.
Potters in Chulucanas, 49 kilometres east of Piura, revived techniques of the ancient Vicús culture to make artistic rather than everyday ceramics, often showing local people. Their pottery has been declared a representative product of Peru, and the sculptor Gerásimo Sosa is known worldwide.
Begun in 1729 after a flood destroyed the earlier church and blessed in 1778, this late Baroque church in Sechura, 50 kilometres south of Piura, has twin towers 44 metres high. Work took almost 50 years, as it was done only in the first months of each year, when the river brought fresh water.
Founded by the Dominicans in 1536, the church of San Lucas in Colán is described as the oldest Catholic church in Peru. By local tradition it was built on the site of a shrine of the capullanas, women of great spiritual power who dressed in black, and the old village gave its name to Colán district.
Some 15 kilometres from Paita, Colán is one of the largest beaches on the coast, about 20 kilometres long between the cliffs of the Paita tablazo and the sea. Its warm, calm water draws many summer visitors, and water sports, contests and long walks along the shore to La Bocana fill the days.
Founded by Pizarro in 1532, Paita, 57 kilometres from Piura, is the second port of Peru and keeps old houses and churches. Pirates such as Drake and Cavendish raided it, and Manuela Sáenz, companion of Simón Bolívar, lived out her last years here in exile until her death in 1856.
The widest part of the coastal desert of Peru covers more than 5,000 square kilometres across Piura and Lambayeque, starting about 55 kilometres south-west of Piura. It is an arid plateau with sparse plants and seasonal lagoons, and farming is possible only in the oases where rivers reach the sea.
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