Off the Beaten Path in Peru

Perched above the bright blue Pacific, Peru's capital is a rich kaleidoscope of colonial architectural jewels, revered pre-Columbian sites, charming residential areas and vibrant shopping districts.

Today, you will explore the city's past, starting with the Government Palace and the City Hall, as well as the Convent of San Francisco, built in the 17th century, and its subterranean catacombs. Back on the surface, you will visit the Rafael Larco Herrera Museum. The fabulous museum is home to an exquisite collection of Peruvian gold and silver, not to mention the largest private collection of pre-Colombian Peruvian art in the world. For lunch, your expert guide will take you to one of their favourite spots in the enchanting district of Barranco, before you explore here.

There are several flights a day, so to give you a bit more time to explore the city - check our handy and detailed destination Dossier for our favourite spots - we've booked you on a mid-afternoon one. After the one-and-a-quarter hour flight, you will be met by one of our team on the ground for a short private transfer to your hotel in the centre of town.

The city was a hugely important Inca site, and crucial in the Spanish colonisation of Peru, a fact which is reflected in its churches and the beautifully preserved colonial houses. As you walk around the city, you will come to the 'ransom room,' where the Conquistador Francisco Pizarro promised Inca King Atahualpa his freedom if he filled the room with gold and silver. Pizarro broke his promise and had Atahualpa executed in the main square.

After lunch, you will visit the amazing Cumbemayo site. Nobody knows exactly how or why these canals and aqueducts were built, but they are surrounded by petroglyphs and other carvings which give some insight into the pre-Incan people who built the impressive site.

The reproductions (the real deals are kept in the Royal Tombs of Sipan Museum) of fabulous gold artefacts and precious stones are left exactly as they were when tomb raiders stumbled across them. Then visit to Tucume, an imposing 26 pyramids site of the Lambayeque culture. You will then visit the brand new Tumbas Reales Museum to find out more about the lives of the people who have inhabited the area for thousands of years.

The journey is only about an hour long, but en route you will visit El Brujo, a pyramid which rises 98ft above the surrounding desert. Built with tens of thousands of adobe bricks, its walls are covered with polychrome reliefs showing war motifs, the food grown by the Moche people, animals, plants and fishing. A few years ago, the Lady of Cao, a remarkably well preserved tattooed mummy of a young woman, a member of Moche royalty, was discovered deep inside El Brujo pyramid. Our guide will explain the theories that abounded about how she came to be buried in the pyramid and what life was like when she was alive.

With your guide, you will explore the temples, where you will interpret the impressive mud-brick friezes on the walls, before visiting a Mohica family. You will then visit the Arco Iris Temple, also known as the Ceremonial Dragon Temple, whose walls are covered in petroglyphs of the daily lives of the Chimu people before heading to the seaside town of Huanchaco, where local fishermen still use traditional caballitos de totora (reed boats). After lunch in Huanchaco, you will visit the ancient mud-brick City of Chan Chan. The adobe-brick built city's 100,000 inhabitants stubbornly resisted the expansion of the seemingly unstoppable expansion of the Incan Empire and your guide will describe how it was eventually conquered by the empire in 1470.

After visiting the village of Pisac, where artisans sell handicrafts, and after lunch, you will be privately transferred to the remarkable fortress at Ollantaytambo, built by the Incas, for a private tour. The Inca Emperor Pachacuti razed the city to the ground and started again from scratch. This means that the city is a near perfect example of 15th century Incan architecture. Your guide will explain the significance of the buildings and ruins, and how they were shaped by the daily lives of the people who inhabited them. After a visit to the Temple of the Sun, you will head back to your hotel for the evening.

When you get to the station, you will take the bus from Machu Picchu Pueblo up to the ruins for your privately guided tour. After a picnic lunch, you will explore one of the New Seven Wonders of the World with your guide, who will explain just how the Incas managed to build such a beautiful and precise site, using only hand tools, and talk you through the altars used for human sacrifices, the temples carved in the shape of condors and the stones used to harness the sun. When you're ready, you will be taken to your hotel for the night.

After you have explored, make your way to Huayna Picchu, the mountain that rises over the citadel. The reward for the hour's climb up the series of Incan steps which are cut into the rockface is a spectacular view over the citadel, but it is quite a hairy climb up and down, so take care.

Once you have descended and taken the train back down to Ollantaytambo you will be privately transferred back to your hotel.

The is the centre of the ceremonies for the famous Inti Raymi festival, no one is quite sure how the enormous stones were cut or moved into place but they certainly held a deep significance to Inca culture. Continuing away from the city, we'll visit the labyrinthine ruins of Qenqo, Puca Pucara, and Tambomachay, where ingenious fountains built by the Incas capture the waters of a natural spring. During your tour, your expert guide will explain how the Incas managed to create so many ingenious devices and structures, many of which still seem relevant hundreds of years later.

Staring in San Blas, home to many renowned artists (and hipsters galore), you and your guide will stroll along its cobblestone alleys towards its church, which features a beautiful pulpit carved from a single block of wood. After that, visit San Pedro Market, where all the wares of the Imperial City are on display, making it the perfect spot to pick up souvenir and, more importantly, lunch.

A few steps from the market is the most impressive building left by the Incas of Cusco: the Korikancha (the Golden Temple), a temple dedicated to the worship of the Sun God. According to legend, the interior walls were once covered in gold. Here, your guide will explain the grisly ways Incas appeased their gods, with human sacrifice a standard way to keep the sun shining. Your tour will end with a stroll through the Main Square, where you will visit the Cathedral and its exquisite vestibules and priceless paintings from the Cusco School of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Your flight to Lima lands in the afternoon and you have plenty of time to connect across to the international overnight flight to London, which leaves late evening and takes 12 hours.