Pisac Ruins & Market

Pisac is a Sacred Valley town that combines some of the most dramatic Inca ruins in Peru with the most popular traditional market in the Cusco region. The ruins, climbing the mountainside above the town, include a sun temple, military terraces, residential quarters, and the cliff-side cemetery where thousands of Inca burial niches are carved into the rock face — a vertical city of the dead that is as impressive as any Inca construction.

The market in the town below operates daily but is largest on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, when Quechua communities from the surrounding villages arrive to sell textiles, ceramics, jewellery, and the agricultural products of the Sacred Valley. The market is more authentic than Cusco's tourist shops — the vendors include both artisans selling directly and merchants, and the prices are generally lower. The local bread (enormous, round loaves baked in wood-fired ovens) and the chicha morada (a sweet drink made from purple corn) are market traditions.

The combination of ruins above and market below makes Pisac one of the most satisfying half-day trips from Cusco — the ruins provide the archaeological experience, the market provides the cultural one, and the Sacred Valley setting (the Urubamba River, the terraced hillsides, the snow peaks on the horizon) provides the landscape that makes everything else look better.