Five days in Cusco: a Spanish city standing on Inca foundations
Four nights at 3,400 metres, taking in the stonework of the old capital, a day down in the Urubamba valley and the early train to Machu Picchu.
- Length
- 5 days, 4 nights
- Where you stay
- Cuzco
- Places
- 12 across 5 days
Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire and the Spanish rebuilt it on top of itself, so the streets are colonial arcades standing on Inca foundations that no earthquake has managed to shift. It is also the base for Machu Picchu, which means it fills every morning with people who have three days and a plane to catch.
Five days changes what the city is. There is room for the ruins on the hill above town, a full day in the Urubamba valley, the long train day to Machu Picchu, and a morning left over for the things you walked past on the first afternoon.
The altitude is the reason to spread it out. Cusco sits at about 3,400 metres and most people arrive by air from sea level, which is the worst way to do it. The first day here is worth losing.
Highlights
- Qoricancha, where a Dominican church stands directly on the walls of the Inca sun temple
- Sacsayhuaman, whose largest blocks weigh more than a hundred tonnes and fit without mortar
- The terraces at Ollantaytambo, and the free climb up the storehouse hill opposite
- Machu Picchu, reached the way almost everybody reaches it, by train down the Urubamba gorge
- A last morning among weavers and twelve-angled stonework, five minutes from the main square
Where to stay
Cusco
The city answers to Cusco, Cuzco and Qosqo depending on who is writing, and the spelling on signs changes street by street. It was the political and religious centre of an empire that ran from Colombia to Chile, and the Spanish who took it in 1533 kept the walls and put churches on them, which is why so much of the old town is a Renaissance facade on stonework laid two centuries earlier.
Four nights keeps the two big excursions on separate days instead of stacking them, and leaves the day you arrive with nothing on it, which at this height is sense rather than laziness.
Day by day
Day 1 in Cuzco
Plaza de Armas and the cathedral
Flights from Lima land in the morning, and the correct response is to check in, drink something and sit down. Walking uphill with a suitcase within an hour of landing at 3,400 metres is how people spend day two in bed.
By mid afternoon most people feel able to do something small. The main square is a hundred metres of flat walking from most hotels in the centre, and the cathedral on its northeast side holds several hundred colonial paintings, including a Last Supper of the Cusco school with a guinea pig laid out on the table.
Eat early and sleep long. The city is at its best at seven in the morning anyway.
- 09:00
Fly in from Lima
TravelNinety minutes from Jorge Chavez, and the approach over the Andes is worth a window seat on the left.
- 15:00
Plaza de Armas
ArchitectureArcades on all four sides, two churches and a permanent trade in paintings and finger puppets. Sit under the arches with a drink and let the afternoon go.
- 17:00
Cusco Cathedral
ReligiousThree linked churches on the northeast side of the square, hung with hundreds of canvases from the Cusco school. Photography is not allowed inside. Attending an early morning mass gets you in without a ticket, though you see less.
- 19:00
An early dinner
EatSoups are the local first night food for a reason. Skip the pisco sours until tomorrow: alcohol at this height hits about twice as hard.
With more time: San Blas, the artisan quarter, is a steep five minutes above the square and full of small workshops. Going up there is a decent test of how the altitude is treating you, and if it is treating you badly, the answer is to come back down.
Day 2 in Cuzco
Qoricancha, Sacsayhuaman and Qenko
The best hour in Cusco is the first one at the sun temple, before the tour groups. What the Spanish found here were walls sheathed in gold plate and a garden of life-size gold and silver maize; what survives is the stonework underneath, which is the finest the Incas ever cut, curved and tapered and fitted without mortar.
In the afternoon, walk up. It is a steep twenty-five minutes from the square to the fortress on the ridge, or a five-minute taxi if the altitude has other ideas. The blocks in the zigzag ramparts are among the largest the Incas ever moved, some of them over a hundred tonnes, and roughly four fifths of the complex was carted away by the Spanish to build the city below.
A kilometre further along the same road is a carved limestone outcrop with channels cut into it for pouring liquid, a passage through the rock and an altar in a cave. Combis run back down to the centre for small change.
- 09:30
Qoricancha
ReligiousThe Inca sun temple with a Dominican convent built on top of it, the two masonry styles a metre apart. Go at opening. A guide is worth it here more than anywhere else in the city.
- 12:00
Lunch near Avenida El Sol
EatLook for a menu del dia: soup, a main and a drink for a few soles. Adobo, a pork stew eaten on Sunday mornings, is the Cusco plate to ask for.
- 13:30
Sacsayhuamán
HistoricThree tiers of zigzag wall on the ridge above the city, and the site of the 1536 battle in which Pizarro's horsemen charged uphill against Manco Inca's army. Two hours is not too much. Included in the boleto turistico.
- 16:00
Qenko
HistoricIts name means zigzag in Quechua, after the channels cut across the rock. There is a tunnel to walk through, a carved altar in the cave and a standing stone that works as a calendar.
With more time: The road carries on uphill past two more sites, a small fort and a spring shrine, both on the same combi route and the same ticket. If you still have legs at four in the afternoon they add an easy hour.
Day 3 in Cuzco
Ollantaytambo and the Urubamba valley
The Sacred Valley is the Urubamba river between Pisac and Ollantaytambo, some six hundred metres below Cusco and noticeably warmer. It is where the Incas grew their maize, and it is where you will breathe more easily than you have since you landed.
Ollantaytambo is the best of it, the clearest surviving example of Inca town planning and still lived in, with water running down the channels the Incas cut. The terraces above it climb to an unfinished temple of enormous pink granite slabs, hauled across the river from a quarry on the far mountainside. This is also where Manco Inca beat a Spanish cavalry force in 1537 by flooding the plain below.
Across the town, on the opposite hillside, a path climbs to a row of storehouses built high up where the wind kept grain dry. It is free, it is quieter than the main site, and the view back over the terraces is the photograph everybody else is queuing for.
- 07:45
Colectivo down to the valley
TravelAround two hours from Cusco by shared minibus, over a pass and down through Urubamba. Leave by eight to have the terraces before the coaches.
- 10:30
Ruins of Ollantaytambo
VisitThe steps to the top take about fifteen minutes at valley altitude. Look for the six pink monoliths of the sun temple and the fountains that still run. Entry is on the boleto turistico, and guides wait in the market below.
- 13:00
El Albergue Restaurant
EatBeside the railway station, with an open kitchen doing trout and alpaca and a farm supplying it. Book ahead at weekends.
- 15:00
Pinkullyuna
HistoricA free, steep hour up the hill opposite, following Lari Calle to the signed path. Andean storehouses, no ticket booth and hardly anybody there. Go with somebody rather than alone.
With more time: Two other valley towns sit on the way back: a large ruin above the market town at the eastern end, and the salt pans, thousands of shallow evaporation ponds cut into a ravine above the valley floor. Either adds an hour or two if you have hired a car or a driver for the day rather than taking the colectivo.
Day 4 in Cuzco
Machu Picchu
It is a long day and there is no version of it that is not. The train leaves from Ollantaytambo, an hour and a half down the Urubamba gorge to the town at the bottom of the mountain, and then a bus climbs a road of switchbacks for twenty-five minutes to the gate. Leaving Cusco before dawn is what buys you a mid-morning entry slot.
Machu Picchu was built around the middle of the fifteenth century, probably as an estate for the emperor Pachacutec, and was abandoned about a hundred years later without the Spanish ever finding it. Terraces hold the ridge up, spring water is piped through sixteen carved fountains, and the whole thing sits on a saddle between two peaks with the river roughly four hundred metres straight down.
Entry is one-way along a numbered circuit, so you see what your ticket covers in the order it dictates. Three pieces of stonework are worth slowing down for: the curved tower over the royal tomb, the carved granite pillar on the upper terrace, and the small chamber where two slabs rise like wings behind a bird's head cut into the floor.
- 04:30
Pre-dawn transfer and the train
TravelCar to Ollantaytambo in the dark, then the train through the gorge. Passports are checked at the station and at the site gate, so carry yours.
- 10:15
Temple of the Sun
ReligiousThe only round building on the site, its curved wall following the rock beneath it, with a window aligned on the June solstice sunrise. The cave under it is a royal tomb.
- 11:00
Intihuatana
HistoricGranite cut in place into a squat pillar, its edges set to the cardinal directions. It is roped off now and photographed from a distance.
- 11:45
Temple of the Condor
ReligiousDown in the lower town, where the head and collar of a condor are carved into the floor and two natural rock faces stand behind it as the wings.
- 14:00
Bus down, train back to the valley
TravelQueues for the bus down build sharply after two in the afternoon. Back in Cusco around ten at night.
With more time: The steep peak that stands behind the ruins in every photograph is a separate ticket, capped at four hundred people a day in two morning entry windows, and it goes on sale a month or more ahead. If you want it, buy that first and build the rest of the day around its time slot. A night in the town below the site is the other way to make this day human.
Day 5 in Cuzco
The twelve-angled stone and the weavers
The last morning stays inside a few streets. Hatunrumiyoc, the lane running east from the cathedral, is a single unbroken Inca wall on one side, and set into it is the block everybody stops for: twelve sides, twelve angles, cut so that no blade goes into any joint.
Ten minutes downhill, a weaving centre keeps the techniques of the villages around Cusco alive and shows what the difference actually looks like between a hand-spun alpaca textile and the machine-made version sold on the square. Weavers work in the room. Almost all of what you pay for a piece goes to the woman who made it.
Then the airport, which is fifteen minutes away and where the queues for the Lima flights are long and cheerful.
- 09:30
Piedra de los doce ángulos
OtherIn the wall of the old archbishop's palace on Hatunrumiyoc. Two minutes of looking and a permanent small crowd, but the joint really is that good.
- 10:15
Museo del Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco
CultureFree, small and the best textile explanation in the country: which village uses which pattern, what each dye is made from, and how long a piece takes. The shop attached is the honest place to buy one.
- 12:30
To the airport
TravelFifteen minutes by taxi. Afternoon flights out of Cusco are the ones that get delayed, so allow for it.
With more time: With a late flight, the covered market a few blocks southwest is where the city actually shops, and the juice counters at the front are a good last breakfast. The chocolate workshops and the small colonial museums around the square all fit inside an hour.
Before you go
Altitude comes first
Cusco is at roughly 3,400 metres and flying in from Lima puts you there in ninety minutes. Soroche, the local word for altitude sickness, usually shows up as a headache, breathlessness on stairs and a bad night's sleep, and it tends to arrive several hours after you do rather than on the way from the airport.
The remedies are dull and they work: drink far more water than feels necessary, skip alcohol on the first night, eat lightly, and do nothing strenuous for the first day. Mate de coca is offered in every hotel lobby and helps a little. If a headache turns into vomiting or confusion, going lower is the treatment, and the Urubamba valley is a couple of hours away and a good deal further down.
One counterintuitive fact: Machu Picchu is only about 2,430 metres up, well below Cusco. The altitude problem is the town you sleep in, not the ruins you came for.
Getting there and getting around
Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport sits inside the city and takes mostly domestic flights, with Lima the main connection and a handful of routes from Bogota and La Paz. Book a morning departure: the valley clouds over in the afternoon and cancellations are much more common later in the day. A replacement airport is under construction out at Chinchero, which will eventually take the bigger aircraft.
The historic centre is small enough to walk, though every walk is uphill in one direction and you will feel it. Taxis are cheap and short. For the valley, shared minibuses called colectivos leave from fixed streets on the edge of the centre for Pisac, Urubamba and Ollantaytambo, and cost a fraction of a tour.
Cusco is Peru's busiest tourist town and pickpocketing is the common crime. The main square is fine late; the streets uphill from it are not, and walking back alone after a night out is how most people lose a phone.
Tickets you have to buy in advance
Most of the archaeological sites around Cusco and in the valley are sold through the boleto turistico, a combined pass rather than individual entries. It comes as a full ten-day version and cheaper partial ones covering just the sites near the city or just the valley, and it can be bought at the first site you visit.
Machu Picchu is separate and stricter. Entry is by named ticket for a fixed hour, tied to one of several one-way circuits through the ruins, and the daily total is capped. In the dry season it sells out weeks ahead, and the peaks you can climb from inside the site are ticketed separately, released a month or more in advance and gone almost immediately.
Trains to Machu Picchu run from Ollantaytambo down the Urubamba gorge, operated by two companies, and the cheapest fares go first. Buy the train, the entry ticket and the shuttle bus up the switchbacks before you leave home rather than in Cusco.
When to go
May to September is the dry season: cold, clear nights, sunny days and the biggest crowds. November to March is the wet season, when afternoons cloud over and the ruins are green and empty. The Inca Trail closes for the whole of February for maintenance, so plan around it if you want to walk in.
Inti Raymi, the reconstructed Inca sun festival, falls on 24 June and takes over the city for a week either side. It is a spectacle and it doubles the price of everything.
Cusco is the rare base city that is better than the excursions it exists to serve. The stonework in the middle of town is as good as anything at the famous site, and it is free to stand in front of.
Fly on to Lima for the coast, or south to Arequipa and the canyon country, where the altitude drops and the food changes again.
Or make it a longer trip
These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- Can I do Machu Picchu as a day trip from Cusco?
- Yes, and most people do. It means leaving around half past four in the morning and getting back late, and it works because the entry ticket is for a fixed hour anyway. Sleeping in the town below the ruins the night before is gentler and lets you be at the gate first thing, at the cost of a night in Cusco.
- How bad is the altitude, really?
- Cusco is at 3,400 metres and most visitors feel it: a headache, poor sleep and being winded by a flight of stairs. It usually passes in a day or two. Arriving from Lima rather than overland gives your body no warning, so keep the first day empty and go down to the valley if it does not improve.
- Do I need to book anything before I arrive?
- Machu Picchu entry, the train and the bus up, all three, and as early as you can in the dry season. Everything else in Cusco can be bought on the day, including the combined ticket for the ruins around the city.
- Is four nights enough?
- It covers the city, the valley and Machu Picchu without a day that starts before dawn twice. A fifth or sixth night would buy the Sunday market at Pisac, the salt pans, or a night down in the valley where sleeping is easier.
- What is the best time of year?
- June to August is dry, cold at night and crowded. April, May, September and October are the compromise. The rainy months from November to March are quiet and green, with cloud on the ruins most afternoons.
- Can I change the order of the days?
- Yes. Copy the trip into a JourneyComposer plan and the days move, so the valley and Machu Picchu can swap places to fit whatever entry hour your ticket gives you.