Monasterio, A Belmond Hotel, Cusco

Belmond's portfolio reaches across continents with properties defined by place and history, and in Cusco that inheritance is literal: a 16th-century seminary built atop Inca palace foundations. The property stands at 3,400 metres, where the altitude alone reshapes perception, sharpening colours and thinning the air. This is the former capital of the Inca Empire, a city inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for its layering of pre-Columbian planning and Spanish colonial ambition. Pachacutec transformed Cusco into an urban marvel of stone terraces and ritual plazas; the conquistadors then grafted churches and monasteries onto those same foundations.

The San Blas neighbourhood rises steeply above the Plaza de Armas, its cobbled alleys threaded with artisan workshops and galleries. This is the bohemian quarter, quieter than the plaza below, where balconies overhang stone steps and doorways open into courtyards scented with eucalyptus. Within a few hundred metres you can walk to Inca walls so precisely fitted that no mortar holds them, each stone polygon locked to the next like a geological puzzle.

Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport sits five kilometres southeast, a short drive through terracotta-roofed suburbs and into the colonial core. The approach to the city is a descent into the valley of the Huatanay River, terraced peaks on all sides, the air thin and bright even through the windscreen.

Sacsayhuamán, the ceremonial complex one kilometre north, sprawls across a hillside with limestone blocks weighing over 100 tonnes, fitted without cement into zigzag ramparts that still baffle engineers. The view from the esplanade takes in the entire valley, red roofs and church towers compressed into a terracotta mosaic. Closer in, Mercado de San Blas (400 metres away) hums with vendors selling rocoto relleno, purple corn chicha, and bundles of fresh muña, an Andean mint used in coca tea. The larger San Pedro Market, less than a kilometre southwest, is the city's provisioning heart: stalls piled with lucuma, cherimoya, and bags of quinoa in every colour from ivory to rust-red.

Book a table at one of the traditional picanterías in the San Blas quarter, where guinea pig, cuy chactao, arrives whole and crisped, served with golden potatoes and aji sauce. The Mercado Artesanal Qoricancha, 800 metres south, is the place for retablos and woven alpaca textiles, though the best pieces often come from the workshops tucked into San Blas alleys themselves, where weavers work on backstrap looms as their ancestors did.

The dry season, May through September, delivers crystalline mornings and nights that drop near freezing, the sun fierce at altitude but the shade perpetually cool. June and July are the coldest months but also the clearest, ideal for trekking or visiting Sacsayhuamán without afternoon clouds closing in. Days hover around 15°C, nights plunge to four or five degrees.

October marks the shift: rains begin tentatively, then intensify through December and peak in January and February, when afternoon downpours drum on tile roofs and fog swirls across the valley. The city greens dramatically, terraces glow emerald, but trails to Machu Picchu turn to mud. March and April taper off, still lush but drier, with fewer visitors and softer light.

High season coincides with the dry months, particularly June for Inti Raymi, the winter solstice festival that fills the plaza and Sacsayhuamán with pageantry. The shoulder months, April and October, offer a balance: manageable rain, thinner crowds, and the landscape in transition.