Lima was founded by Spain’s Francisco Pizarro in 1535.  However, the area was populated centuries before, with settlements reaching back to 10,000 BC.  In 1746, an earthquake destroyed much of Lima, so most of today’s old monasteries, cathedrals, palaces, mansions, etc. are rebuilt or expanded versions of what existed before. However, there are still pre-Columbian ruins.

A 16th century compound, Casa de Aliaga, is well worth a visit.  Built in 1535 next door to Pizarro’s palace by Captain Aliaga, an ally of Pizarro’s, the compound has ever since been the home of Aliaga’s descendants.  The 17th generation of Aliagas now occupies it.  Although restructured in places, it is supposedly the oldest house in the Americas.  It has beautiful old statues, including a 16th century bust of Columbus, historic paintings and antique Japanese porcelains.  We were surprised to see Aliaga family members and their guests having an afternoon tea in the cordoned-off living room.  The dining room, with its spectacular coffered wood ceiling, had its table elegantly set for dinner for 11.  This is a unique and photogenic living museum and home.

Highlights of the Basilica and Convento de San Francisco include :  a 17th century library with leather-bound books and parchments in beautiful bookcases;  carved wooden choir stalls under the coffered ceiling of the Basilica’s cupola;  and, the Convento’s garden.

The Museo Larco is special, with its vast and frequently stunning collection of pre-Columbian ceramics, gold, silver, and other objects. The collection is in an 18th century mansion built for Spanish royalty.  One unusual display has two human skulls, each with a prominent hole in the back.  Next to them rests a tool used by Incan healers/priests to make holes, such as in the skulls on display, to relieve pressure from subdural hematomas.  Based on their evaluation of the skulls, scientists think that only one of the two operations was successful.  A nearby, small building houses the museum’s unique Erotic Gallery

Cusco is a charming old city that already had a population of 15,000 when Francisco Pizarro arrived.  Signs of the Incan empire, such as magnificent stone walls, remain as Spaniards incorporated them into structures they built.  

For example, a hotel now occupies what was a 500-year-old colonial mansion built on the ruins of an Incan palace that was once part of what is now called the “Temple of the Sun”.  The hotel has stone walls and arches from the Incas.  Next door is what remains of the Temple, an important religious site of the Incan empire.  The Iglesia and Convento Santo Domingo were built in 1610 on top of the ruins of the Temple of the Sun.  They have Incan walls from the Temple, including an unusual curved one, made of perfectly fitted stones. 

The Spanish converted, into what is now Cusco’s Plaza de Armas, a religious site that was at the exact center of the Incan empire and sometimes called The Four Quarters of the Earth.  The Plaza, which is a picturesque and popular square with gardens and fountains, is half the size of its Incan predecessor and has colonial buildings around it.  

On one side of the Plaza are La Catedral and, just to its right, El Triunfo, the first Christian church in Cusco (built in 1536).  Spaniards began building La Catedral in 1559, in part from stones taken from the Incan Sacsayhuaman fortress on a nearby hill overlooking Cusco (discussed below).  La Catedral has a magnificent interior, including a carved cedar choir under a vaulted ceiling of white stone.

Today, the Plaza is a busy gathering spot and a great place to photograph people.  For example, dancers wearing traditional white face masks and colorful costumes were performing in front of the Iglesia, which is on one corner of the Plaza.  Incan descendants use this traditional dress and dance to celebrate the high-class merchants that historically provided goods to Cusco.  A second-floor balcony of a café on another corner of the Plaza provided a good vantage point from which to see and photograph locals engaged in everyday activities. Some wore traditional clothing made of brightly colored woven wool with mixed patterns.  A covered and colorful marketplace called Marcado Central de San Pedro, which is just a short trip from the Plaza, is another good place to take pictures of people and scenes of daily life in Cusco.

Sacsayhuaman, a large Incan fortress and religious center, sits on a hill with a great view down to Cusco and its old central square.  Sacsayhuaman has carefully cut stones so massive (up to 125 tons) that it remains difficult to comprehend how the Incas moved them from a quarry to the site and then fit them extraordinarily precisely in place to make the fortress walls.  The road from Sacsayhuaman into the Sacred Valley and to Machu Picchu leads to other Incan sites, including Q’enko, an Incan shrine with an amphitheater and a stone block said to represent a puma.  The road also passes by hillsides on which the Incas constructed terraces with stone walls; they are still used today to grow produce.