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Few cities carry the weight of history quite as visibly as Cusco. Sitting at roughly 3,400 metres above sea level in the southern Andes, it was the imperial capital of the Inca Empire, the largest pre-Columbian civilisation in the Americas, and its streets still bear the physical evidence of that past. Massive Inca stonework forms the lower courses of colonial buildings throughout the centre, a layering of civilisations that is not metaphorical but literally structural. The Spanish arrived in the 1530s and built their churches and convents directly onto Inca foundations, sometimes incorporating the original walls entirely. Walking through the San Blas neighbourhood or along Hatunrumiyoc street, where the famous twelve-angled stone sits fitted into a wall with extraordinary precision, makes this superimposition of empires feel immediate rather than academic.

The Plaza de Armas anchors the city socially and architecturally, as it has for centuries. Under the Inca it was known as Huacaypata and served as a ceremonial gathering space; under Spanish colonial rule it became the civic and religious centre it remains today. The Cusco Cathedral, completed in 1654 after nearly a century of construction, dominates one side of the square. It is one of the finest examples of Spanish colonial baroque architecture in South America, and its interior holds an extraordinary collection of paintings from the Cusqueña school, a distinctive regional tradition that blended European Renaissance technique with Andean iconography. An entry ticket to the cathedral gives access to this collection in full, including the famous painting of the Last Supper by Marcos Zapata, in which the central dish is a roasted guinea pig. Alongside the cathedral on the same plaza stands the Church of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit church completed in the late seventeenth century, whose ornate facade is considered among the most accomplished baroque frontages in the region.