More and more people are travelling to Peru just to have a taste for its delicious dishes. Hotels are also playing a big role in this new tourism arena where their kitchens have become part of the tour as well.

One of the first questions tourist ask when they arrive at the hotel here in Lima is, where can I eat? of course that opens up a great and expanded list of possible results. Here in Casa Bella we had a guest from the US navy that came to Lima for a week and he only came to eat. He did not come to visit Machu Picchu, Cusco or Arequipa, his mission was just to try the diferent restaurants in Lima, he left satisfied and convinced that the peruvian cuisine was one of the best.

Here in Casa Bella we would like to invite our friends and future guests from all over the world to enjoy, not only our hotel, but our cuisine as well.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

As you arrange your next trip to Lima, take some time to tour around San Isidro in the internet, google around and make sure you see some pictures of the city, you will find many colonial style homes, modern buildings and an ocean shore that magnifies the beauty of the city. The district is considered and exclusive upper class district and it is conveniently located twenty to twenty five minutes from the airport, so if you are even coming into Lima for just a few hours it is very worth the ride.

San Isidro will give you the opportunity to experience the real sense of the city, residential parks, historical mansions, beautiful buildings very well kept, like the Country Club, which by the way is just a few steps away from our Casa Bella, and you will even find some Inca Ruins like the Huaca Huallamarca. Of course we cannot leave aside the famous restaurants like Jose Antonio, very well known for its delicious Peruvian dishes, the restaurant  is considered an emblematic restaurant in San Isidro and why not say in the whole city of Lima.

While you tour around the city online, you will also find that the best hotels are based in San Isidro and that is one of the best signals that a traveller can have. The rates might be high for some people but that is why Casa Bella  gives the option to all travellers to stay in San Isidro with a very affordable rates. The hotel has been in this area for over five years now and it has received the best reviews in many travel guides like Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor.

Casa Bella welcomes you to San Isidro and invites you to tour around the city, the hotel provides comfortable accommodations, sightseeing tours, bike tours, walk-tours and best of all great affordable rates.

Welcome to San Isidro and Casa Bella!

Lima is a nine million people city, the third part of the population is based in the capital, mostly in urban areas and although the city is going through a whole reconstruction process, Lima still maintains historical and traditional places worth visiting.

When travelling to lima make sure you first do a walking tour of downtown, (if you do a sightseeing tour you will be missing a lot) here, you will get a good pick of  the colonial area of the city; the main Plaza Mayor, Plaza San martin, the Lima Cathedral, as well as the famous boulevard Jiron de la Unión, will be just a few a places you will be able to admire, all built during the Spaniards empire and with beautiful architecture.

Casa Bella recommends visiting downtown between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., before and after that traffic could be a mayor issue. From Casa Bella to downtown it can take you around 20 to 25 minutes in a cab and the fare could be around S/.10.00 to S/.18.00 Peruvian Soles (local currency) or about US $4.00 to $8.00 (American dollars) depending if you decide to take a street cab or a private one. Here in Casa Bella, we always recommend taking a private one, the difference is not much and it can save you dealing with informal taxi drivers that might be looking to take advantage of the situation.

After visiting downtown Lima and seeing also the change of guard at the Government Palace, we suggest heading to Miraflores for a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean in Larcomar. Larcomar is like an outdoor mall type of place, hiding in an ocean-view cliff that holds many shops, restaurants, cinemas, theaters and a whole line of entertainment options. Many locals gather in this place for a relax evening and after office drink. We recommend dining in Mangos that has a really nice terrace and great ocean view and if you are more of a night type of person, looking for a fun bar with live music, having a drink in Mama Batata could satisfy your curiosity.

Miraflores is the main tourist center together with San Isidro, both cities are based to many beautiful five star hotels, famous restaurants and residential parks. In San Isidro we recommend visiting the Olive Park or Parque El Olivar, a historical five hundred year old park, founded by the Spaniards back in the XVI century. it is a beautiful park surrounded by European and colonial style mansions, the park is only about 20 minutes walk from Casa Bella.

A few other must-see places are the Huaca Pucllana, Huaca Huallamarca, Larco Museum, Water Fountain Park, Kennedy Park in Miraflores, the Lima Zoo mostly known by Parque de las Leyendas, the district of Barranco (a bohemian type of town next to Miraflores) and I personally recommend taking a walk through El Malecon Cisneros, Malecon de la Marina and Malecon de la Reserva, these are beautiful and quiet roads with decorated parks and all with ocean view. Walking around these malecons you will also get to see beautiful modern buildings that can tempt you buy one.

For suggestions or questions please write to us at casabellaperu@msn.com.

We hope this can help you in your upcoming visit to the city of Lima Peru.

Orlando Sánchez A.
Casa Bella Boutique Hotel
www.casabellaperu.net

The need to visit the most common tourist spots, considering th short time a tourist may have in Lima, is quite logic and undisputable, I personally do the same thing when I travel, but I have found in the last five years that I run Casa Bella Boutique Hotel  that there is more and more  interest  in the deep local staff rather than the tourist spots, people want to know more about the day-to-day staff and experience the Lima life like the locals do.

Recently, I met a nice american guest that was able to spend a little more time in Lima than most common visitors, he was the happiest men on earth, with a big smile all the time and facing life right up front. We became kind of friends and we would spent certain amount of time discussing about different issues, he was the type that wanted to explore everithing, trying to live each day with new exciting experiences. He would wake up early in the morning and would not comeback until late at night with all kinds of urban stories.

So what did this guy do? well, he would go to places or do things I would never think of reccomending a guest, like riding a Combi for example (informal transportation bus) I consider riding a combi lke a wild adventure sport, allowable only for the locals. This type of tranportation is unsafe, irresponsable, with rude and  bad behave drivers. They have made out of some parts of Lima a chaotic city with no driving rules at all. But anyways, my guests was really happy that he rode in one of this combis, he found it fascinated and like nothing he experienced before, during the ride he was stear at all the time, with people wondering what the heck is this guy doing here.

Another day he came back all dirty and sweaty, he was able to get into a street soccer match in a tough neighborhood with little and nos spanish at all. I believe his body lenguage said a lot, he had a good energy aurea.

I am not saying people should be looking for this type of adventure or do this type of things, what I am trying to get out there, is that a trip should not be encircled in a tourist-route context, a trip could be more exciting by complementing it with local day-to-day experiences. A well balanced trip with a mix of tourist spots and well-guided local areas could be the best way to go to get the most out of your trip.

Places in Lima I would reccommend besides the famous tourist spots:

The Zoo (Parques de las leyendas, don´t go on a Sunday)
Parque El Olivar (historic park)
Embarcadero 41 (good place for young people to party, starts early in the afternoon)
La posada del Angel (nice bar in Barranco with life music)
La Punta, Callao
Cieneguilla
Chosica
La Molina

Take a bike ride for Miraflores and San Isidro, instead of riding a tourist bus, you will get to know more of the inner city spots than riding a tourist bus.

Enjoy your trip!

Casa Bella Boutique Hotel

In order to provide more information out there, to people related to the industry, or maybe students interested in studying this potential market, I will try to provide some basics.

So let´s start with a simple question, what is the difference between a traditional hotel and a boutique hotel? well, there are a few differences, but they are more than enough to convince the most timid traveller to try, in his or her next new trip, this new way of hospitality service.

One important difference is the size. While many traditional hotels tend to allocate several rooms and suites in the building, boutique hotels do just the opposite, they hold just a bunch of them, usually from eight or nine to fifteen or sixteen, keeping the balance in the relation to the quality of service. Boutique hotels would not like to jeapordize their main feature (quality in service) by adding too many rooms in their stablishments.

I would like to take a pause to mention a couple of things. Many people talk about quality and service, two words that have been overused and missused in the business arena, not only in Peru but through out the world as well. When I mention these two words, I really mean them, quality and service become the two solid foundations that hold the concept of a boutique hotel, they both materialize in front of the guest, they become a concrete and massive experience and explodes to multi-positive consequences in the memories of a stranger, but not only for the visitor but to the one that provides the service as well.

I am not saying that traditional hotels provide a poor customer service or that they treat their guests with low standards of attention, by the contrary, I deeply believe we can and have learnt a lot from traditional hotels, they actually have provided important fundamentals. What I most refer to, is that boutique hotels tend to provide a different type of service, a more personal one, one that I call face-to-face service. This face-to-face service generates and crafts unforgetable experiences and rich memories in the minds of the guests. And how is this done? well, think of a typical tourist that comes to Peru and stays in a traditional hotel, the mindset of that tourist is that he will be attended first by a typical recepcionist in a typical counter and asked the typical questions, maybe this tourist will be standing in line holding a carry-on waiting for a turn, in other words, just a typical check-in or introduction that many of us have experienced.

Now, think of a boutique hotel, small, original, maybe an old mansion redesigned with unique arquitecture and style, imagine the owner of the hotel waiting in the entrance to greet and welcome the guest with his or her name, what do you think that visitor is going to think right at that moment? you are right, he or she is going to think “I am not just another guest, I am an important guest”. Remember, there is not a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure, if you are in the hospitality business, to make the most of that welcome moment, of that first encounter that will not repeat itself.

In Casa Bella, I could say that I have my first encounters with my guests not at the entrance but in the internet. Not too many people realize that the process of communcation, specially the written one, is the key to generate trust and confidence with your guest. I have many guests come to me and say “you know.. I am staying with you just because the way you responded” … this is so gratifying and rewarding to what you do. So here is another difference, guests staying in a boutique hotel do not get just another default email with confirmation, they get a personalize email welcome them to the business At least, that is what we do in Casa Bella, we take several minutes on how we respond to each and every of our guests. So, the experiece starts way before a guest´s arrival, it starts when your visitor is first contacted by the manager, assistant or owner of the hotel.

Don let just the words quality and service slide through your education and formation as a professional, make sure you certainly live by them.

To all the people in the hospitality buesiness, I would say, keep an eye on this new concept and embrace its philosophy, as you will see more of it in the coming years.

Orlando Sanchez A.
Casa Bella Boutique Hotel
Lima Peru

Located in our top floor and with an area of 165 mt2 or 1770 ft2, the Bella Suite provides an elegant and spacious atmosphere with all the amenities you can think of.  Equipped with three continuous rooms, a living room, a dining room, a TV area, (59” TV), a DVD (including latest released movies), a full equipped kitchen, a guest bathroom, and a great view of the San Isidro residential area, the Casa Bella Suite creates a private and totally independent atmosphere, giving you the feeling of owning your own apartment in the most exclusive district of Lima.

A special Suite for family or friends, the Bella Suite can host a family of six, three couples or just three single guests.

Each room in the Bella Suite has its own private bathroom, cable TV, DVD, telephone, clock radio and a spacious closet.

The nightly rate includes full breakfast, wireless internet, room service, and daily cleaning services. Click here to check our rates

The Bella Suite is the perfect choice for family and friends. Our old Lima style mansion provides a home-like atmosphere and makes you feel in control.

The Bella Suite is the perfect choice for family or friends, romantic getaways, or business travel.
San Isidro is the touristic and financial district of Lima; it is home to many and the most important five star hotels in Lima, it is also base to several well- known enterprises and renowned international organizations.

Our exclusive Bella Suite is also ideal for diplomatic meetings; our location is just steps away from important embassies and international organizations; this strategic location gives Casa Bella a convenient advantage to host VIP meetings.

Be the host of distinguished visitors by staying at the Casa Bella Suite – Apartment and impress your visitors by providing them with a unique and exclusive atmosphere.

Be part of the tradition and stay in the Casa Bella Suite.

Our queen size bed and state of the art Rosen mattress with box spring will complement a good night sleep. Our Deluxe Bella Suite provides full comfort with full equipped bathrooms and showers. Relax in the evening after that long tour or from that stressful business meeting.

The Suite is located on the seventh floor of the building with a great view of the Lima City.

Experience the comfort and the elegance of our Deluxe Bella Suite for almost the same rate that you would pay in a hotel.

Our full equipped kitchen includes new stove, LG refrigerator with water and ice cubes dispensers, silverware and all the extras, like a blender and pans.

But that’s not all, the Deluxe Suite provides our guests with free access to the club house, swimming pools, gym, sauna, internet access, kids area and much more.

The Club House and more

Click here to check rates and availability