Cusco stacks two empires on one street plan: Inca ashlar walls carrying colonial arches, royal palaces turned convents. Three days of fortresses, huacas, chronicler houses and Cusco School canvases — from Pachacutec's rebuild to the 1781 rebellion.
Megalithic fortress-temple above the city, begun under Pachacutec with limestone blocks up to 125 tonnes fitted without mortar. Site of the 1536 siege where Manco Inca's army nearly retook Cusco from Pizarro's men. Open 07:00–17:30.
Carved limestone huaca whose Quechua name means 'zigzag': channels cut into the living rock once ran chicha or llama blood for divination, and the underground chamber holds an altar used in Inca mummy rituals. 4km from the plaza.
Two sites on the old Antisuyo road: Puka Pukara, a red-stone checkpoint guarding the route to the jungle, and Tambomachay, the 'Bath of the Inca', where a spring still feeds three ceremonial terraces through Inca stone channels.
The 1590 admiral's mansion, rebuilt after the 1650 earthquake, holds Peru's deepest Inca collection: 450 painted wooden keros, fetal-position mummies, gold figurines and textiles, with weavers working in the courtyard. Entry S/10.
Raised 1560–1654 on Wiracocha's palace with blocks hauled down from Sacsayhuamán. Holds Marcos Zapata's Cusco School Last Supper with roast guinea pig on the table, and María Angola, a 1659 bell once heard 40km away.
The Jesuits built this church on Huayna Cápac's Amarucancha palace; its 1668 facade so outshone the cathedral that the dispute went to the Pope in Rome. Inside hangs the painted wedding of Beatriz Clara Coya. Entry S/15.
The birthplace of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, mestizo chronicler whose Comentarios Reales taught Europe what Tawantinsuyu was. Rooms run from pre-ceramic points and Nasca ceramics to Cusco School canvases and republican portraits.
A 22m stone tower on the Ovalo Pachacútec topped by a bronze of the ninth Sapa Inca who rebuilt Cusco in the shape of a puma and launched the empire's expansion. Nine internal floors of exhibits end at a 360° balcony.
A 1580 mansion on Inca foundations at Plazoleta Nazarenas showing 450 pieces of Nasca, Moche, Huari and Chimú work selected as art rather than artefact, with wall texts quoting 16th-century chroniclers. Entry S/20.
Iron-framed 1925 market attributed to Eiffel's workshop, built on the Inca road out to Chinchaysuyu. Vendors still weigh coca by the arroba and pour chicha morada and frog juice; the fruit aisles sit on Santa Clara convent's old orchard.
Colonial palace of the Concha family, raised on Túpac Inca Yupanqui's Amarucancha grounds, now displaying the material Yale returned to Peru in 2011: bones, bronze tools, ceramics and Hiram Bingham's 1912 excavation records.
The barrio church stands on Colcampata, the palace attributed to Manco Cápac and later home of Cristóbal Paullu Inca, the baptised puppet Sapa Inca who built it around 1543. Eleven Inca niches survive in the terrace wall below.