Best of Cusco

Catedral [1]: Cusco’s baroque cathedral, built atop a former Inca palace, dominates the town’s Plaza de Armas and is filled with a huge range of paintings from the Cusco School, elegant carved choir stalls, and a gold-covered Renaissance altar.

San Blas [2]: This charming neighborhood is our favorite place to stay, eat, and shop in Cusco. Its narrow cobblestone streets, lined with gorgeous colonial architecture, are car-free and blissfully peaceful.

Coricancha and Santo Domingo [3]: Coricancha, the Inca sun temple, was once covered with thick plates of solid gold. After sacking it, the Spaniards built a Dominican church atop its seamless walls. The bizarre juxtaposition illustrates the religious conflict that agitates Cusco even today.

Sacsayhuamán [4]: This stone fortress of massive zigzag walls, fashioned from stone blocks weighing hundreds of tons, towers over Cusco and is the ultimate expression of the Inca’s military strength.

The Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco [5]: This pioneering center not only sells Cusco’s finest textiles, but also supports local weavers and helps them recover their ancient weaving techniques in the process.