Cusco sits at 3,400 metres in the Peruvian Andes, and for a city with a daytime population of under half a million it carries an outsized amount of history — capital of the Inca Empire, cornerstone of Spanish colonial Peru, and now the gateway to Machu Picchu for the two million visitors a year who pass through.
The centre is Plaza de Armas, with the Cathedral (built on Viracocha’s palace, 1654) and La Compañía de Jesús facing each other across the square. The architecture tells the whole story: Inca stone foundations hold up Spanish colonial arcades.
Walk a few blocks in any direction and the layers keep stacking. Qorikancha is a Dominican convent built on top of the Inca sun temple. The 12-angled stone on Hatunrumiyoc Street is an engineering joke still visible 500 years later. The San Blas neighbourhood above the plaza is a maze of white-walled artisan workshops.
Beyond the city, the Sacred Valley opens up to the north — Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Moray, Maras — and the train to Machu Picchu runs from Ollantaytambo and Poroy.
Give Cusco two nights at a minimum. The altitude makes the first day slow regardless of what you’d like to do.
