Hotel Cusco

 recently added a hotel reservation section to our Peru travel site. You can now find a
great selection of touristic hotels in Cusco, Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley on

Since most hotels in Peru don’t offer online reservations, I added an online hotel
reservations interface to our site, where you can select hotel, room type, and make your
reservation online. All listed hotels are at least 3-star rated and are located in the
touristic district.

Hotel Cusco :

History Cusco

Legendary capital of the great Inca Empire, plundered and rebuilt by the Spanish, Cuzco
is the archaeological capital of the Americas and one of the oldest continuously
inhabited cities in the Western Hemisphere. Popularly known as "the navel of the
world" for its place at the very center of Tawantinsuyu, Cusco has traded its bygone
imperial dominance for renewed fame as the "Tourism Capital of Peru". Declared a
World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1983, the city receives almost a million visitors
every year drawn by its fascinating history, Inca ruins and Spanish colonial architecture.

Legend has it that Manco Capac, the first Inca ruler, was instructed by his father Inti,
the sun god, to build a temple of the sun in the place where he could thrust a golden
staff into the earth. So it happened that Manco Capac founded the city of Cusco in the
11th or 12th century; however, the city's glorious transformation into the grand capital
of the Inca Empire would take place later on under the ninth Inca ruler named
Pachacuti. Pachacuti expanded the empire by means of ambitious military campaigns
and developed Cuzco into a structured urban center with specific religious and
administrative functions. He constructed some of the city's finest buildings, including
the Coricancha temple and a palace adjacent to the Plaza de Armas, and designed the
city in the shape of a puma. The city had four districts, representing the four provinces
of Tawantinsuyu, each with a road that led out to its respective realm. Each local leader
built a house in the quarter of the city corresponding to their province of residence, as
they were required to do, and lived there part of the year.

In 1533 Francisco Pizarro discovered the city, captured it and plundered its wealth of
silver and gold. He established a municipal government in 1534, but the following year
moved his capital to Lima on the coast, which led to Cuzco's decline in importance. The
city was later besieged in 1536 by Manco Inca, the puppet emperor Pizarro had crowned
a few years prior, in an attempt to drive the Spanish out with an army of over one
hundred thousand Inca soldiers. The Spanish were very nearly wiped out, but managed
to force Manco Inca to retreat, recapture Cuzco and settle it once again. A new Spanish
city was then built on Cuzco's old Inca foundations and many Inca temples and palaces
were torn down to make way for churches and mansions. During the colony Cuzco
thrived on agriculture, cattle farming, mining and trade with Spain, and many new
buildings were constructed, including a cathedral, numerous churches and convents, a
university and an archbishopric. In the years that followed the city became a hub of
artistic production and suffered two major earthquakes in 1650 and 1950. But it was the
rediscovery of Machu Picchu in 1911 that transformed the city more than any other
event since the arrival of the Spanish, leading to its rebirth as Peru's leading tourist
destination. Indigenous children wearing traditional clothing Cuzco boasts a number of
architecturally significant structures, the most prominent of these being the Coricancha
and Sacsayhuamán. An Inca temple dedicated to the sun and creator deities, Inti and
Viracocha, the Coricancha was built on sacred ground in the center of an astronomical
observatory. True to its name, which means "golden courtyard" in Quechua, the
Coricancha was encrusted with hundreds of gold and silver sheets and the Inca ruler
would ceremonially plant golden corn stalk statuettes in its terraced gardens. The temple
is said to have been "fabulous beyond belief" but much of its gold was confiscated in
order to provide Atahualpa's ransom. The Spanish built the cathedral of Santo Domingo
on the foundations of this temple and some of the original Inca stone walls can still be
appreciated. The Incas were master stonemasons and their mortarless walls of closely-
fitted irregularly cut stones have survived devastating earthquakes unlike many colonial
buildings. A famous example of this is the twelve-angled stone in a wall on Hatun
Rumiyoc street.

more information  you can fine Hotel Cusco

http://www.hotelcusco.net/