Peru Culinary Landscape Discovery Tour Detail Page

Touch down at Jorge Chávez International Airport and let your private transfer carry you to your luxury hotel in the heart of Miraflores — Lima's most elegant and vibrant district, perched dramatically above the Pacific Ocean. The rest of the day belongs entirely to you. Settle into your beautifully appointed suite, take your first swim in the hotel pool with the Pacific stretching to the horizon beyond, indulge in a spa treatment, or simply sink into a sun lounger on the terrace with a cold pisco sour and let the city's extraordinary energy wash over you from a distance. Tonight, dinner at the hotel or a short walk to one of Miraflores' acclaimed waterfront restaurants — the perfect gentle introduction to one of the world's great culinary capitals.

Lima reveals two completely different worlds today — the raw, creative energy of Callao and the refined grandeur of the city's colonial heart. Begin at the Delicias de Callao — Lima's most celebrated seafood market and street food destination, where the freshest Pacific catches arrive daily and the ceviches, tiraditos, and seafood stalls deliver flavors of extraordinary intensity just minutes from the dock. Continue to Monumental Callao — a breathtaking urban art transformation of a former rough neighborhood into one of Latin America's most extraordinary open-air galleries, where world-class murals cover every surface in extraordinary color. The afternoon moves elegantly to the Larco Museum — one of the world's finest pre-Columbian art collections set within a magnificent 18th-century vice-royal mansion. The day closes with a pisco sour and chilcano demonstration — covering the art of Peru's most celebrated cocktails with a passionate local expert.

After a leisurely breakfast your private transfer heads south along the Panamerican Highway through dramatic coastal desert where the Andes meet the Pacific in a landscape of extraordinary austere beauty — approximately three to four hours of spectacular scenery before arriving at the small port town of Paracas, gateway to one of Peru's most pristine and protected natural environments. Check into your luxury beachfront hotel on the shores of Paracas Bay and allow the rest of the day to unfold entirely at your own pace. The hotel facilities, the extraordinary quality of the afternoon light over the bay, and the complete absence of any agenda make this one of the most genuinely restorative days of the entire journey. Sunset over the Paracas Bay is simply unmissable.

Paracas delivers its most extraordinary day. Rise early for a boat excursion to the legendary Ballestas Islands — teeming with hundreds of thousands of Humboldt penguins, sea lions, Peruvian boobies, cormorants, and pelicans in a wildlife spectacle of breathtaking abundance that consistently leaves visitors speechless. Return to shore for the day's most distinctive and delicious experience — a visit to an artisanal mariculture operation on the bay, where local fishermen have been cultivating scallops in the Paracas Reserve's protected waters for generations. Pull on waders and wade into the shallows to harvest scallops directly from their beds, bringing them to the shore for an extraordinary tasting of freshly harvested scallops — raw, ceviche-style, and grilled — an intimate farm-to-fork experience of extraordinary freshness in one of the Pacific's most productive marine environments.

A scenic return journey along the Panamerican Highway carries you back to Lima for your domestic flight south to Arequipa — Peru's second city and arguably its most beautiful. The flight over the Andes delivers extraordinary aerial views of the snow-capped Cordillera before landing at Rodriguez Ballón International Airport. Your private transfer takes you to your luxury hotel in the heart of the White City — so called for the extraordinary pearlescent sillar volcanic stone from which its baroque colonial center was constructed, glowing luminously against the dramatic backdrop of the El Misti volcano above. Check in, take in the extraordinary surroundings from your terrace, and enjoy the hotel's facilities as Arequipa's warm evening light bathes the city in an extraordinary golden glow.

Arequipa is Peru's most underrated culinary destination — and today it reveals both its extraordinary food culture and its breathtaking colonial heritage in equal, magnificent measure. A morning tour of the UNESCO World Heritage historic center winds through extraordinary baroque colonial streets and the magnificent Plaza de Armas before entering the crown jewel of the city — the Santa Catalina Monastery, a vast 16th-century convent city of cobblestone streets, vivid orange and blue painted walls, and peaceful cloisters that feels completely removed from the modern world. The afternoon immerses you in Arequipa's legendary traditional cuisine — rocoto relleno, chupe de camarones, and adobo arequipeño at a celebrated local picanteríia — before the Yanahuara viewpoint delivers one of the most breathtaking sunset panoramas in all of Peru.

A spectacular scenic drive east from Arequipa carries you through one of the most extraordinary landscapes in South America — crossing the high-altitude puna grasslands of the altiplano as the road climbs toward 4,900 metres before descending toward the shimmering expanse of Lake Titicaca on the horizon. The journey passes through remote Andean communities, ancient agricultural terraces, and vast open plains where vicuña graze in the thin mountain air and the sky feels impossibly close and impossibly blue. Arrive at Puno and check directly into your luxury hotel situated right on the shores of Lake Titicaca — the world's highest navigable lake at 3,812 metres above sea level. The late afternoon view of the lake from your room as the Bolivian mountains glow on the far horizon is one of the great natural spectacles of South America.

A profoundly moving day that combines ancient funerary architecture, authentic community culture, and the extraordinary experience of casting a fishing line into the world's highest navigable lake. Begin at Sillustani — one of the most dramatic and mysterious archaeological sites in all of Peru, where the Colla people built extraordinary chullpas — tall cylindrical funeral towers — on a peninsula above a shimmering highland lake, their construction so advanced that the upper stones are larger than the lower ones in a feat of engineering that still baffles researchers. Continue to the village of Atuncolla for a traditional regional lunch with a local family — deeply authentic, warmly generous, and completely unforgettable. The afternoon delivers a uniquely peaceful pleasure — fly casting on Lake Titicaca, guided by local fishermen on one of the world's most extraordinary bodies of water.

Today's journey between Peru's two most extraordinary destinations offers a choice of two equally magnificent experiences. The Belmond Andean Explorer — South America's first luxury sleeper train — departs Puno and crosses the breathtaking altiplano in elegantly restored vintage carriages with fine dining, observation cars, and spa facilities, arriving in Cusco in a state of complete comfort and wonder. Alternatively, a private scenic road journey stops at three extraordinary cultural treasures en route — the village of Pucara famous for its ceramic bulls, the remarkable Raqchi temple of extraordinary Inca architecture, and the breathtaking baroque church of Andahuaylillas — the Sistine Chapel of the Americas. Either way, the journey is as extraordinary as the destination. Check into your luxury Cusco hotel and rest.

Cusco — the ancient capital of the Inca Empire and one of the most extraordinary cities in the Americas — reveals its magnificent layers today. Begin at Qorikancha — the Temple of the Sun, once the most sacred building in the entire Inca Empire, its golden walls stripped bare by the Spanish conquistadors and a Dominican convent built directly on top — where the extraordinary contrast of Inca stonework of impossible precision beneath Spanish colonial baroque architecture tells the story of the conquest more powerfully than any museum. Continue to Sacsayhuamán — the breathtaking Inca fortress on the hill above Cusco where massive stone blocks weighing up to 300 tonnes are fitted together with such extraordinary precision that not even a piece of paper can be slipped between the joints — one of the most awe-inspiring archaeological sites on earth.

Today Cusco's extraordinary culinary heritage takes center stage in the most hands-on and deeply satisfying way imaginable. A full-day immersion Peruvian cooking class begins at the San Pedro Market — where your chef guide leads you through the extraordinary colors, aromas, and flavors of the most important ingredients in Peruvian cuisine, from native potato varieties and Andean chillies to exotic jungle fruits and the finest local cuts of meat. Return to the kitchen to spend the morning mastering the techniques behind Peru's most celebrated dishes — ceviche, causa, lomo saltado, ají de gallina, and the perfect pisco sour — before sitting down to enjoy the extraordinary feast you created, paired with Peruvian wines and the warmth of a cooking experience that goes far beyond a class and feels genuinely like being welcomed into someone's home.

Transfer to the Sacred Valley for a day of extraordinary flavor, natural beauty, and ancient agricultural genius. Begin with a deeply immersive native potato tasting and Andean wine experience — discovering the extraordinary biodiversity of Peru's potato heritage, with over 3,000 native varieties cultivated in the Sacred Valley alone, paired with wines from Peru's emerging high-altitude wine regions in a tasting that reveals unexpected depth and sophistication. Continue to the remarkable Maras salt mines — thousands of individual salt pools terraced into the hillside above the valley, shimmering pink and white in the afternoon light — before exploring the extraordinary circular terraces of Moray, an Inca agricultural laboratory of concentric terraces creating different microclimates at each level that remains one of the most architecturally extraordinary and enigmatic sites in the entire Sacred Valley.

The day the entire journey has been building toward. Board the extraordinary Peru Rail Vistadome 360° train — panoramic glass roof panels and oversized windows framing the breathtaking descent from high Andean valley into lush subtropical cloud forest as the train winds alongside the sacred Urubamba River gorge. Arrive in Aguas Calientes and ascend by bus to the entrance of the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu — and as the ancient citadel reveals itself in all its extraordinary glory above the clouds, the magnitude of what you are witnessing settles slowly and completely. A private guided tour of the citadel brings every stone, terrace, and temple alive with history and mystery before a magnificent lunch at Sumaq Hotel — the finest dining experience available on the mountain — before the afternoon train returns you to the Sacred Valley.

A final full day in Cusco that celebrates the city's extraordinary drinks culture through one of the most enjoyable and social experiences of the entire journey. A guided cocktail walking tour leads you through the historic center stopping at celebrated bars, hidden speakeasies, and artisan distilleries — tasting the full range of Peru's extraordinary pisco expressions from classic to contemporary alongside the cocktails that have made Lima and Cusco's bar scene internationally celebrated. Between stops the guide weaves in stories of Cusco's extraordinary history, hidden architectural details, and the best-kept local secrets of one of the world's most atmospheric cities. The evening concludes at one of Cusco's finest rooftop bars — cold pisco sour in hand, the Plaza de Armas illuminated below, and the entire extraordinary journey spread out behind you like a perfect memory.