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Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús
This church is often lit up at night and can be seen from the train as you come in from Machu Picchu after dark. Its foundations are built upon the palace of Huayna Capac, the last Inca to rule an undivided, unconquered empire. Built by the Jesuits in 1571, it was reconstructed after a 1650 earthquake.
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Iglesia de San Blas
This simple adobe church is comparatively small, but you can't help but be awed by the baroque, gold-leafed principal altar. The exquisitely carved pulpit has been called the finest example of colonial wood-carving in the Americas.
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Iglesia de San Francisco
This church and monastery dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, is more austere than many of Cuzco's other churches, but it does have a large collection of colonial religious paintings and a well-carved cedar choir. One of the paintings measures 9m x 12m (supposedly the largest painting in South America) and shows the family tree of St Francis of Assisi, the founder of the order. His life is celebrated in the paintings hung around the colonial cloister.
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Iglesia de Santo Domingo
The church of Santo Domingo is most famous as the site of Qorikancha, which was Cuzco's major Incan temple. It has twice been destroyed by earthquakes, in 1650 and 1950, as well as being damaged in the 1986 earthquake - photographs in the entrance show the extent of the 1950 damage. Also in the entrance is a doorway carved in Arabic style - a reminder of the centuries of Moorish domination in Spain.
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Iglesia y Convento de Santa Clara
This 16th-century church, part of a strict convent, is difficult to visit but it's worth making the effort to go for morning services, because this is one of the more bizarre churches in Cuzco. Mirrors cover almost the entire interior; apparently, the colonial clergy used them to entice curious indigenous peoples into the church for worship.
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Iglesia y Monasterio de Santa Catalina
The tranquil Iglesia y Monasterio de Santa Catalina has a musty museum of religious art, with many colonial paintings of the escuela cuzqueña, plus a dramatically friezed baroque side chapel, with the convent's main altar of carved cedar.
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Incan Citadel
This hilltop Incan citadel lies high above the village of Pisac on a triangular plateau with a plunging gorge on either side. It's a truly awesome site, but you'll see surprisingly few tourists here, except mid-morning on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, when it becomes flooded with tour groups.
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La Catedral
Started in 1559 and taking almost a hundred years to build, the Catedral squats on the site of Inca Viracocha's palace and was built using blocks pilfered from the nearby Inca site of Saqsaywamán. The cathedral is joined with Iglesia del Triunfo (1536) to its right and Iglesia de Jesús María (1733) to the cathedral's left. El Triunfo, Cuzco's oldest church, also houses a vault containing the remains of the famous Inca historian, Garcilaso de la Vega.
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Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is not mentioned in the chronicles of Spanish conquistadors. Apart from some indigenous Quechuas, nobody knew of its existence until American historian Hiram Bingham stumbled upon it in 1911. Machu Picchu was initially overgrown with thick vegetation. Bingham returned in 1912 and 1915 to clear the thick forest, when he also discovered some of the ruins on the Inca Trail.
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Musea de Historia Natural
The university-run Musea de Historia Natural houses a motley collection of stuffed local animals and birds and a few other dusty items, including over 150 snakes from Parque Nacional Manu and various Amazon biodiversity projects. The entrance is hidden off the Plaza de Armas, to the right of the church of La Compañía de Jesús. But if you can't find it, don't worry: you're not missing much.
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Museo de Are Precolombino
Inside a Spanish colonial mansion with an Inca ceremonial courtyard, the dramatically curated Museo de Are Precolombino showcases a stunningly varied, if selectively small, collection of archaeological artifacts previously buried in the vast storerooms of Lima's Museo Rafael Larco Herrera. Dating from between 1250 BC and AD 1532, the artifacts show off the artistic and cultural achievements of many of Peru's ancient cultures, with exhibits labeled in Spanish, English and French.
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Museo de Arte Religioso
Originally the palace of the Inca Roca, the foundations of this museum were converted into the residence of the Marquis of Buenavista and then into the archbishop's palace. The mansion now houses a fascinating religious art collection, notable for its period detail and its insight into the interaction between the conquistadors and the Indians.
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Museo del Sitio de Qorikancha
Next to the church of Santo Domingo, this small underground archaeological museum is entered off Av El Sol. There are sundry archaeological displays interpreting Inca and pre-Inca cultures.
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Museo Histórico Regional
This museum is housed in the colonial Casa Garcilaso de la Vega, the house of the Inca-Spanish historian who now lies buried in the cathedral. The chronologically arranged collection begins with arrowheads from the Preceramic Period and continues with a few pots of the Chavín, Vicus, Mochica, Chimu, Chancay and Inca cultures. There is also a Nazca mummy, a few Inca weavings and some small gold ornaments excavated from Qorikancha and the Plaza de Armas.
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Museo Inka
The charmingly modest Museo Inka, a steep block northeast of the Plaza de Armas, rests on Inca foundations; it's also known as the Admiral's House, after the first owner, Admiral Francisco Aldrete Maldonado. It was badly damaged in the 1650 earthquake and rebuilt by Pedro Peralta de los Ríos, the count of Laguna, whose crest is above the porch. Further damage from the 1950 earthquake has now been fully repaired, restoring the building to its position among Cuzco's finest colonial houses.
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Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporaneo
There's a small collection of contemporary Andean art on display at the Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporaneo in the municipality building.
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Plaza de Armas
In Incan times, the plaza, called Huacaypata or Aucaypata, was the heart of the Incan capital. Today it's the nerve center of the modern city. Two flags usually fly here - the red-and-white Peruvian flag and the rainbow-colored flag of Tahuantinsuyo, representing the four quarters of the Incan empire. Foreigners often mistake the latter for an international gay-pride banner, to which it bears a remarkable resemblance!
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Qorikancha
These Incan ruins form the base of the colonial church and convent of Santo Domingo. Once the richest temple in the Incan empire, all that remains today is the masterful stonework. Qorikancha, which is Quechua for 'Golden Courtyard', was literally covered with gold: the temple walls were lined with some 700 solid-gold sheets. Within months of the arrival of the first conquistadors, this incredible wealth had all been looted and melted down.
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Qorikancha ruins
If you visit only one site in Cuzco, make it the Qorikancha ruins, which form the base of the colonial church and convent of Santo Domingo. Once the richest temple in the Inca empire, all that remains of Qorikancha today is the masterful stonework.
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Templo y Convento de la Merced
Cuzco's third most-important colonial church, Templo y Convento de la Merced was destroyed in the 1650 earthquake, but was quickly rebuilt. To the left of the church, at the back of a small courtyard, is the entrance to the monastery and museum. Paintings based on the life of San Pedro Nolasco, who founded the Order of La Merced in Barcelona in 1218, hang on the walls of the beautiful colonial cloister.
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