Accommodation
Inkaterra La CasonaCusco, Peru
Housed in a former 16th century manor house, this building is redolent of the history of Cusco with its carved stone windows and original wooden shutters, and the rooms all set around a small cloistered courtyard. The hotel is located on the Plaza de las Nazarenas almost opposite the better-known and quite different Belmond Palacio Nazarenas Hotel.
The 11 rooms are all different, but are beautifully decorated with appropriate fabrics and furnishings, some overlooking the square in front of the hotel. Two of the suites feature restored murals, and the building has been host to a number of distinguished figures from Peru’s colonial and post-colonial era, including the Spanish conquistador Diego de Almagro and Simon Bolívar.
The feeling of this hotel is very relaxed with comfortable chairs and sofas in the sitting room and an open fire, and an honesty bar. The small restaurant serves good locally sourced food and the intimate dining room which is decorated with Inca stone carvings is only open to hotel residents. The Yacu therapy room offers a variety of massages and Andean hot stone treatments for tired residents after a hard day’s sight seeing.
From the outside there is little to indicate that this is a hotel, and it is this discretion combined with the good service and expertise which we have come to expect from the Inkaterra Group which makes this one of our favourite hotels in Cusco. News update: in 2019 the hotel was nominated one of the Daily Telegraph’s top 50 hotels in the world – congratulations Inkaterra!