Sacred Valley Tour from Cusco: Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero

This Sacred Valley tour from Cusco strings together three Inca towns in one long day, with a bilingual guide and a hotel pick-up. The road climbs through the mountains to the Taray viewpoint, a pause for wide views of the valley floor, when time allows.

At Pisac the ruins hold temples, dwellings, altars, channels, carvings and even tunnels. Look out for the Intiwatana, a stone sundial, and for the biggest known Inca burial ground, with more than 2,000 tombs. A buffet lunch in Urubamba follows, and then comes Ollantaytambo, a strategic military, farming and religious centre. Its hilltop Sun Temple shows off carved stone, terraces and linked stairways, and here the Spanish suffered one of their rare defeats of the conquest.

Heading back to Cusco, you visit a colonial church and the ruins of Chinchero, where terraces and altars stand, and then a weaving workshop. There, local people who keep Quechua traditions show how natural dyes are made from plants, and you can try on traditional Andean clothing for photos.

If you prefer, you can be dropped off in Ollantaytambo, at the train station or the main square, in the afternoon. The partial tourist ticket for the sites is not included.