Morning
Land at LIM
Jorge Chávez International, Callao. Allow about 45 minutes to Barranco outside rush hour, and agree the fare before you get in.
Check in: Hotel B
Av. Sáenz Peña 204, Barranco. A 1914 Belle Époque summer mansion turned Relais and Châteaux hotel, hung with over 300 artworks.
Afternoon / Day
Ceviche at La Mar
Av. La Mar 770, Miraflores. Gastón Acurio's cebichería, and the room most Lima ceviche gets measured against. Come at lunch and expect to wait.
Huaca Pucllana
Calle General Borgoño cuadra 8, Miraflores. An adobe pyramid stranded in the suburbs, walked on a guided circuit. Check the day's opening hours before you set out.
Malecón walk to Parque del Amor
Clifftop park on the Malecón Cisneros, Miraflores. Paragliders launch off the same edge; walk it for sunset, which comes early in June.
Evening
Dinner at Maido
Calle San Martín 399, Miraflores. Micha Tsumura's Nikkei room took the World's 50 Best top spot in 2025; Monday to Saturday, bookable 60 days out.
Morning
Plaza Mayor de Lima
Heart of the colonial grid, Cercado de Lima. The cathedral, the Archbishop's Palace and the Palacio de Gobierno all face the same square.
San Francisco catacombs
Jirón Lampa at Jirón Áncash, two blocks off the plaza. The Franciscan convent is seen on a guided circuit through the cloisters, library and bone crypts.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at the Museo Larco café
Av. Simón Bolívar 1515, Pueblo Libre. The café sits on the museum's terraces over the gardens, so treat lunch and the galleries as one stop.
Museo Larco
Same address, an 18th-century mansion built on a pre-Columbian pyramid. Open daily 9:00 to 19:00; the open storerooms are the reason to come.
Puente de los Suspiros
Bajada de Baños, Barranco. Cross the wooden bridge, then follow the ravine path down toward the sea; the street art starts here.
Evening
Dinner at Central
Av. Pedro de Osma 301, Barranco, five minutes from the hotel. Virgilio Martínez plates Peru by altitude; Monday to Saturday, two seatings, book months ahead.
Morning
Fly Lima to Cusco
LIM to CUZ, roughly 1h25 over the Andes. The road route runs about 1,100 km through the mountains, so nobody drives this.
Straight down to the Sacred Valley
Do not stop in Cusco. It is about 1h15 from the airport to the valley floor near 2,870 m, some 500 m below the city you just landed in.
Afternoon / Day
Chinchero on the way through
Adobe church raised on Inca foundations, on the plain above the valley. It sits around 3,760 m, so keep the stop short and keep descending.
Check in: Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba
Huayoccari, km 63 of the Cusco-Pisac-Urubamba road. Stand-alone casitas around a casa hacienda, across roughly 100 acres of valley floor.
Acclimatise: do nothing
Water, coca tea, a slow walk, no alcohol. Altitude is the one thing that can wreck this trip, and the only real cure is a lower bed and time.
Evening
Dinner at the hacienda
On site, so nobody drives at night. Andean grains and valley produce, with the mountains going dark outside the window.
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Morning
Moray terraces
Maras district, about 40 minutes from Urubamba. Concentric bowls the Inca used as an agricultural laboratory; covered by the Boleto Turístico del Cusco.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at Mil
Beside the Moray terraces at 3,568 m. Virgilio Martínez's highland kitchen serves one tasting menu, Tuesday to Sunday from noon; reserve well ahead.
Salineras de Maras
Thousands of salt pans terraced down a ravine, fed by a single saline spring and worked since before the Inca. Viewing is from the marked walkway.
Ollantaytambo fortress
Above the old town, 40 minutes down-valley. Climb the terraces to the unfinished Temple of the Sun and its six pink monoliths, quarried across the river.
Evening
Dinner at El Albergue
At Ollantaytambo train station. Family-run, cooking from its own farm, with the Destilería Andina spirits made on the property.
Drive back to Urubamba
About 30 minutes back down the valley road. Dark falls early in June, so do not leave it late.
Morning
Drive to Pisac
About 40 minutes down the Vilcanota from Urubamba. Go early: the coaches come over from Cusco mid-morning.
Pisac archaeological park
Terraces stacked up the ridge above the town, with the Intihuatana sun-stone at the top. On the Boleto Turístico; start high and walk down.
Afternoon / Day
Pisac market
Plaza de Armas de Pisac. Artisan stalls run daily, but Sunday is the big trading day, when growers come down from the villages above.
Lunch off the market stalls
Around the same plaza. The clay-oven bakeries turn out cheese empanadas all morning; add a bowl of soup and you are done.
Cerámica Seminario
Av. Berriozábal 405, Urubamba. Pablo Seminario's working studio and gallery; guided tours walk you through the pre-Columbian techniques behind the glazes.
Evening
Early dinner at the hacienda
Back on the property. Eat early and repack: tomorrow you travel with one small bag and leave the suitcase behind.
Morning
Transfer to Ollantaytambo station
Roughly 30 minutes from Urubamba. Leave the main suitcase at the hacienda; the train allows only a small bag per passenger.
Coffee at Café Mayu
Run by El Albergue, a few steps from the boarding platform at Ollantaytambo station. Specialty coffee and a proper breakfast before you get on.
Vistadome train to Machu Picchu
PeruRail runs Expedition, Vistadome and Vistadome Observatory from Ollantaytambo down to Machu Picchu Pueblo; the panoramic cars earn the upgrade.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo
Km 110 Línea Férrea. Casitas in a 12-acre cloud-forest reserve holding 372 native orchid species, at roughly 2,000 m.
Orchid and birding walk
On the hotel's own trails, naturalist-guided. An hour or so, and the easiest way to see what actually grows on the mountain you climb tomorrow.
Evening
Shuttle ticket and passport check
Buy the bus ticket in town on Av. Hermanos Ayar. Machu Picchu tickets are issued in the visitor's name, so take the passport you booked with to the gate.
Dinner at the hotel
On site above the Vilcanota. Contemporary Peruvian, and the only sensible plan the night before a pre-dawn start.
Morning
Shuttle bus up to the gate
From Av. Hermanos Ayar, about 25 minutes of switchbacks up the Hiram Bingham road. Join the queue before the first departure.
Machu Picchu, Circuit 2
The citadel at 2,430 m. Circuit 2 is the classic route — panoramic viewpoint first, then down through the urban core. Circuits run one direction only, with no doubling back.
Afternoon / Day
Late lunch back at the hotel
Km 110 Línea Férrea, five minutes from the station. Shower, eat, collect the bags, then walk to the platform.
Train to Ollantaytambo, road to Cusco
PeruRail back up the gorge, then about 1h45 by road to the city. You climb roughly 1,400 m today, which is exactly why Cusco was saved for last.
Evening
Check in: Belmond Hotel Monasterio
Calle Plazoleta Nazarenas 223. The San Antonio Abad monastery of 1595, raised on Inca foundations; oxygen-enriched rooms exist if the altitude bites.
Dinner at MAP Café
Plazoleta Nazarenas 231, a glass box in the Museo de Arte Precolombino courtyard, 30 seconds from the hotel. Open daily, evening service from 18:00.
Morning
Pre-dawn drive to the trailhead
About three hours south-east through Cusipata and Pitumarca. Groups leave Cusco before first light to get up and back ahead of the afternoon cloud.
Vinicunca (Rainbow Mountain)
Striped mineral ridge above 5,000 m, reached on a steady walk from the trailhead. Horses are for hire; this is the highest point of the trip by design.
Afternoon / Day
Drive back to Cusco
The same three hours in reverse, back in the city mid-afternoon. Sleep on the bus; you have earned it.
Evening
San Blas at dusk
The artisan quarter climbing above the Plaza de Armas, all workshops and cobbles. Take Cuesta San Blas slowly, not straight off the bus.
Dinner at Pachapapa
Plazoleta San Blas 120. Cusqueña cooking around a colonial courtyard, open daily from noon to 22:00; the regional plates are the point.
Morning
Qorikancha
Plazoleta Santo Domingo, off Av. El Sol. The Inca Temple of the Sun with a Dominican convent built straight onto it; the curved wall outlasted two earthquakes.
Catedral del Cusco
Plaza de Armas. Find the Marcos Zapata Last Supper, in which the disciples are served roast guinea pig and a jug of chicha.
The twelve-angled stone
Calle Hatunrumiyoc, two blocks off the plaza. One block cut to meet its neighbours on twelve faces, with no mortar anywhere in the wall.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch in Mercado San Pedro
Calle Túpac Amaru. Juice row first, then a bowl at the caldo counters; the cooked-food aisles wind down early, so go before one.
Centro de Textiles Tradicionales
Av. El Sol 603. A non-profit working with highland weaving communities; weavers work on the floor and the pieces are priced for what they took.
Sacsayhuamán
On the ridge above the city, near 3,700 m. Zigzag walls of blocks, some over 100 tonnes; taxi up from the plaza and walk back down through San Blas.
Evening
Pisco flight at Museo del Pisco
Santa Catalina Ancha 398, a block off the plaza. A pisco bar rather than a museum; let them walk you through the grape varieties and feed you alongside.
Down to Lima, One Last Lunch
Morning
Breakfast in the cloister
Calle Plazoleta Nazarenas 223. Eat in the Monasterio courtyard under the old cedar before the taxi out to the airport.
Fly Cusco to Lima
CUZ to LIM, about 1h25. Take a morning departure: Cusco sits in a bowl, and afternoon weather is what strands people here.
Afternoon / Day
Farewell lunch at Isolina
Av. San Martín 101, Barranco. Old-school taberna cooking in portions built for sharing; open daily, and worth booking ahead.
Last walk along the Barranco cliff
From the Bajada de Baños out along the Malecón. Twenty minutes of Pacific before you turn back toward the airport.
Evening
Fly out of LIM
Long-haul departures cluster late evening. Leave Barranco three hours ahead; Lima traffic is the only variable that matters.
