Palacio del Inka, a Luxury Collection Hotel

Palacio del Inka is a Marriott Luxury Collection palace built over Qorikancha, the Inca Temple of the Sun — a colonial mansion claimed by Gonzalo Pizarro in 1533, with original Incan stonework and the famous Stone of Eight Angles in its bar. Rooms and suites run across a historic block in colonial decor, from around twenty-seven square metres, with hand-painted ceilings, gilded antiques and coffered dark-wood niches; oxygen and coca tea ease the three-thousand-four-hundred-metre altitude. The Andes Spirit Spa is the largest in Cusco and the only hydrotherapy and thermal circuit in town, with an indoor pool kept warm at altitude, while Inti Raymi dines on local and international cooking with a Master Sommelier wine programme, and the bar sits beside the original Incan stonework. It stands directly across from Qorikancha and seven minutes' walk from the Plaza de Armas, around twenty minutes from Cusco airport, on a bed-and-breakfast base — made for couples and culture-and-wellness travellers basing in Cusco for Machu Picchu, sleeping on the foundations of the Temple of the Sun.