Peru's City of Eternal Spring — Chan Chan, Huacas, and the birthplace of marinera
Trujillo is Peru's third-largest city and its most underrated — a city of grand colonial plazas, pastel-painted Baroque mansions, and some of the most important pre-Columbian ruins in South America. Just outside town, Chan Chan was the largest adobe city ever built and capital of the Chimú Empire; the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna are colossal Moche pyramids with extraordinary painted friezes visible for the first time in centuries. Trujillo is also the birthplace of marinera, Peru's national dance, and its summer festival is the most spectacular in northern Peru.
The Trujillo area was home to the Moche civilisation (100–700 AD), who built massive adobe platforms and developed some of the finest ceramic and metalwork in pre-Columbian America. The Chimú Empire (900–1470 AD) built Chan Chan — covering 20 km² — before being conquered by the Inca. Spanish Trujillo was founded in 1534 by Diego de Almagro, named after Pizarro's hometown in Extremadura. It declared independence from Spain in 1820 — the first Peruvian city to do so — and the Declaration of Independence was signed here.