The background of this nomination is a bit of a mystery to me, as the short introduction on the Unesco-website is an unintelligible paragraph that seems to have been generated by Google Translate from Spanish into English. Something about "a lot of real landmarks".

I guess chances for any Spanish-colonial historical center to get into the List nowadays are not great, but Trujillo's architecture definitely has a special touch. Most remarkable is the wrought-iron grillwork that adorns the historic mansions in the city center. These buildings all have been turned into practical use, especially banks seem to favour these as their location for business. When I visited on a Friday morning, the Plaza de Armas was taken over by a parade of marching children representing different schools. A militarist display likes this is something you would rarely see outside of South America. It would have been unheard of at my school in the Netherlands at least: we did not do much outside of the curriculum except for the yearly Easter football tournament. But it looked totally appropriate to Trujillo.

I would not make the trek out to the north of Peru just to see this though - about 2 hours is enough here, the historical center is not big. But you will have to get here anyway if you plan to visit the nearby WHS of Chan Chan and the Moche Ruins.