Cusco sits high in the Peruvian Andes at 3,400 meters, built on the remains of the Inca capital. It’s the main hub for travelers heading on to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, and it rewards time in its own right.
The old center is small, cobbled, and walkable. The Plaza de Armas is the obvious anchor — ringed by colonial churches, a working cathedral, and cafes with tables out onto the square. From there, the lanes head up into San Blas, the artisan quarter, and down into the market streets around San Pedro.
Short of the city, the Sacred Valley opens out — a lower, warmer stretch of the Urubamba valley with Inca sites at Pisac and Ollantaytambo and farming villages still working the terraces. The fortress at Ollantaytambo is the one most travelers climb for the view back up the valley.
Machu Picchu itself is a train ride down the valley from Ollantaytambo. The citadel on its ridge above the Urubamba is still, after a century of visitors, the single most impressive thing most people see in Peru — the stone jointing, the terraces, the way the city reads as a planned object laid onto a mountain.
Cusco is where it all starts. Allow a few days here to acclimatize, see the city, and get the trip in order before you head on.
