You are met on arrival at Lima airport off your chosen international flight and transferred to your hotel for the night.

Your guide comes to your hotel for a morning tour of Lima as an introduction to the city. You visit the Parque del Amor in Miraflores for its views of the Pacific, and visit the pre-Incan site of Huaca Pucllana. In Lima’s historic centre you pass the Government Palace and the City Hall on the Plaza de Armas, and visit the Cathedral. Finally you are taken to visit the Santo Domingo Monastery which has an impressive old library and attractive cloisters. You are returned to your hotel with the rest of the day free for you to get to know Lima for yourself.

B

You are collected from your hotel in Lima and returned to the airport for an early morning flight to Cusco, where you are met on arrival. You travel by road from Cusco into the Sacred Valley with your guide. As the road winds down through the mountains, you pause at a small community project at Awanacancha. Here you can get up close to llamas, guanacos and alpacas, and see how their wool is spun, dyed and woven to make traditional textiles. As you descend into the Sacred Valley, you will see on the opposite side the dramatic Incan ruins of Pisac commanding the entrance to the valley. After visiting the ruins you descend to the town where there is a daily market. Stop for a buffet lunch, and later visit the Inkariy Museum of Peru’s ancient civilisations. You then arrive at your hotel in the Sacred Valley.

B

This morning you are collected from your hotel to explore the Sacred Valley and its long history. While you travel you will experience something of the way life is lived today among its traditional communities, tilling fields by hand or ox-plough beside the tumbling waters of the Urubamba river, shepherding llamas and alpacas, bargaining in busy markets, creating finely-worked handicrafts, and coming together to celebrate in country fiestas. You visit the magnificent Incan fortress of Ollantaytambo, with its temples, observatories, grain stores and stone-walled terraces. Climbing out of the valley to a dramatic plateau with spectacular mountain panoramas, you visit the circular terraces of the Incan site at Moray. Descending back to the valley you stop at the salt pans above Maras, where tier-upon-tier of salt pans stepped into the side of the valley are tended by local families. In the afternoon you board the train to Machu Picchu Pueblo, the village below the Incan citadel. At the station you are met and taken to your hotel in the village.

BL

At first light you head up by bus to the ruins of Machu Picchu where your private guide shows you the main area of the citadel complex. Afterwards you have free time to soak up the atmosphere, to explore the citadel some more, to walk out to the Inca bridge, or the Watchman's hut. If you would like to hike up either Huaya Picchu or Machu Picchu mountain you would need us to apply in advance for a permit. These are limited in number, so please book early! In the late afternoon you travel by train and road to your hotel in Cusco.

B

This morning your local guide meets you at your hotel to visit the main Incan sites around the outskirts of the city. At the great fortress and sun temple of Saqsawaman you walk among massive Incan stone walls at the jaguar’s head of the layout of the Incan city, with wonderful views over Cusco and beyond. At the smaller site of Qenko you delve into Incan beliefs, entering passages carved into a sacred rock that lead to its revered divining stone, accessible only to priests, while the Inca congregation gathered in a semicircle amphitheatre with open views of the Cusco valley beyond. You also visit the Incan baths at Tambo Machay, where water from a mountain spring cascades through a masonry channel into a pool below, at just the right height for a (rather short) Inca to enjoy. At nearby Puca-pucara you see a lovely example of a classic Inca post-house, or tambo, of the kind that marked each day’s journey on Incan roads throughout their empire. In the afternoon you tour the city itself. Stopping beside the church of San Cristobal there is a lovely panoramic view over Cusco to get your bearings and pick out many of the most prominent buildings. A few streets away you stop to explore St Peters Market, a bustling covered market stuffed with local produce from the Andes. You next visit Qoricancha, the most important temple of all in Incan times, with walls once lined with gold. In the oldest, most atmospheric part of Cusco you visit the narrow street of Hatunrumiyoc flanked by the original walls of the palace of Inca Roca (on which the Spanish built their Archbishop’s Palace–now the Museum of Art). A long sloping wall of magnificent Incan mortarless stonework made with large pillows of green diorite runs beside the alley. Near the centre is a single stone with 12 sides carved and polished to exactly fit its neighbours. The continue down to the Plaza de Armas, Cusco’s impressive main square, and visit the Cathedral. Later you should have some free time left to explore this lovely city yourself and perhaps choose your restaurant for dinner.

B

A free day to get to know Cusco, a frequent winner of ‘world’s favourite city’ awards. Churches and museums vie with art galleries and craft shops, photogenic streets bustle with colour and life, while lovely cafes and restaurants await the traveller just when you start to wilt.

B

This morning you are collected from your hotel in Cusco and taken to the airport for your flight to Lima, arriving in time for evening international flights to the UK. You fly overnight and arrive in the UK the following day.