Plaza San Martín is the other great plaza of the centre, a block-square space at the south end of Jirón de la Unión, surrounded by white Belle Époque facades from the 1920s — the Hotel Bolívar, the Club Nacional, and a row of arcaded buildings. In the centre, the bronze equestrian statue of General San Martín, the Argentine liberator of Peru, was unveiled in 1921 for the centenary of Independence.
The plaza is the traditional gathering point for political demonstrations and is often busy in the evenings with food carts, street performers, and pisco vendors. The Gran Hotel Bolívar on the corner served the first Pisco Sour outside Morris's Bar in 1924 and remains the place to try one in town.