Attractions

Bodegas (Wineries)

Dispersed throughout the Ica countryside are some 85 traditional artisanal wineries that produce pisco and regular table wines. Several of the larger bodegas welcome visits; these can be interesting because pisco is such a unique Peruvian product, but they're unlikely to be the most fascinating winery tours you'll experience in your lifetime. They don't usually draw big crowds, so visits can be a little homespun and even haphazard. If you don't have your own transportation, the best way to visit the following bodegas is to either take a taxi or check with one of the travel agencies in town about organized tours. Tours given on the premises of the wineries are frequently in Spanish only. For 3-day/2-night package tours from Lima to Ica, which include transportation, bodega visits, meals, city tours, and accommodations, call Fly Peru/La Ruta del Pisco at tel. 01/445-3900; the cost is $69 to $99 per person, depending on the hotels.

Harvest time, from late February to April, is by far the best time to visit. At other times, the bodegas can be very quiet; it might be difficult finding someone to give a tour, but you might also have the chance to sit down for a drink with the owner.

No Wine Until It's Time -- Ica celebrates a wine-harvest festival (Festival Internacional de la Vendimia) during early March. The second Friday of the month is a major holiday throughout the Ica department. Many activities take place in the vineyards, although around town there are concerts, handicraft fairs, Peruvian caballos de paso (step horses) shows, beauty pageants, and cockfighting. (Don't these last two always go together?) It's a great time to get your fill of pisco. The lovely maiden chosen as the Queen of the Festival gets to doff her shoes and squish grapes in a huge wine vat, to the titillation of all.

Another date to remember: July 25 is the Día Internacional del Pisco across Peru, and everybody gets drunk on a national scale.

Colonial Churches & Mansions

Ica has several colonial churches and mansions of note, even though many have been felled by earthquakes over the years. Iglesia de La Merced (also called La Catedral), on the southwest corner of the Plaza de Armas, is a late-19th-century colonial church with a handsomely carved altar. Iglesia de San Jerónimo, Cajamarca 262, is primarily of interest for its altar mural. Iglesia de San Francisco, though constructed in 1950, is notable for its stained glass; it's at Avenida Municipalidad, at Avenida San Martín. The most important church to worshipers, the neoclassical Templo del Santuario de Luren, Calle Ayacucho at Piura, was sadly destroyed by the 2007 earthquake that struck the region.

Among the most attractive of Ica's casonas, or colonial mansions, are the Casona del Marqués de Torre (today the Banco Continental), on the first block of Calle Libertad; Casa Mendiola, on Calle Bolívar; Casona Alvarado, a Greco-Roman imitation at Cajamarca 178; and Casona Colonial El Portón, Calle Loreto 223.