Calle Loreto (Inca Walls)

Calle Loreto is the best-preserved Inca street in Cusco — a narrow lane running from the Plaza de Armas southeast toward Qorikancha, flanked on both sides by perfectly fitted Inca stone walls that have been standing since the 15th century. The wall on the left (as you walk from the plaza) was part of the Acllahuasi (House of the Chosen Women, the Inca institution where selected women wove textiles and brewed chicha for the emperor). The wall on the right was part of the palace of Inca Roca.

The Inca masonry on Calle Loreto demonstrates the different construction grades the Inca used — the finest, most precisely fitted stonework (used for temples and palaces) is visible here, with each stone individually shaped to fit its neighbours in a mortarless joint that has survived 500 years of earthquakes. The contrast between the Inca foundations (which lean very slightly inward for earthquake resistance) and the colonial buildings above (which sit plumb) is visible along the entire length of the street.

The walk from the Plaza de Armas to Qorikancha via Calle Loreto takes about five minutes and provides the most compressed encounter with Cusco's dual architecture — Inca below, Spanish above, both surviving because the Inca understood stone and the Spanish understood how to build on top of it.