Peru » Cusco | 🏛 Cusco Walking Tour

Cusco: Sacred Valley Day Trip & Ollantaytambo with Lunch

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.96 (5,577 reviews) 97% rated it 5 stars

Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/37

Duration10h

GroupUp to 17

LanguagesEN · PT +1

Mobile ticketAccepted

Four Inca sites in one day, starting from your Cusco hotel at dawn

You visit Pisac ruins and market, eat a buffet lunch by the river, explore Ollantaytambo's Inca fortress and colonial streets, and return to Cusco by 7pm — all with a professional guide, transport, and meals included. If you're catching the train to Machu Picchu, the tour can drop you at Ollantaytambo station instead.

10h

Step-by-step itinerary

Visit Pisac Archeological Site
Shop at Pisac Artisan Market
Enjoy buffet lunch by Urubamba River
Tour Ollantaytambo town and ruins
Option to take train to Aguas Calientes
Return to Cusco by 19:00 if preferred

The Experience

Someone is climbing stone terraces carved into a mountainside at 3,300 meters, reading the landscape like a map — that's you, standing at Pisac Archeological Site with a guide who speaks Spanish, English or Portuguese. The ruins sit high enough that the whole Sacred Valley spreads below, and the morning light hits the agricultural terraces in a way that makes the engineering obvious: the Incas didn't just build here, they read the slope and the water and the sun first. You spend the early hours walking through the site, and then the guide takes you down to the Pisac Artisan Market, where the stalls are already crowded with locals buying vegetables and tourists picking through handmade textiles. It's not staged — people are actually shopping for dinner.

By mid-morning you're heading to Tunupa Restaurant, which sits right along the Urubamba River. The buffet includes Peruvian dishes — ceviche, lomo saltado, fresh trout — and you eat with the sound of the river underneath everything. After lunch, the group moves on to Ollantaytambo, a town that looks like someone froze a working Inca settlement in place. The cobbled streets are narrow enough that cars barely fit, and the archeological site sits at the edge of town, where the Incas held off Spanish forces for nearly fifty years. Your guide walks you through the temple and the fortress, and explains why this place mattered differently than Pisac — it was a last stand, not just a settlement. The whole day is structured so you're not rushing; you're moving through the valley in a way that makes the geography stick.

At Ollantaytambo, you have a choice. If you've booked a train to Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu, the tour can drop you at the train station — you just send your departure time when you book. If you're heading back to Cusco, the van leaves Ollantaytambo at 17:45 and gets you to your hotel around 19:00. The Sacred Valley tour includes roundtrip transport from most hotels in Cusco, so you don't arrange pickups or negotiate with drivers; the guide meets you in the morning and brings you back the same evening.

What’s included

Your day includes hotel pickup in Cusco, professional guide in your chosen language, entry to Pisac Archeological Site and Ollantaytambo, time at the Pisac Artisan Market, buffet lunch at Tunupa Restaurant on the Urubamba River, and roundtrip transport back to your hotel or optional drop-off at Ollantaytambo Train Station for onward travel to Aguas Calientes.

Good to know

Easy physical levelInfant seats availableInfants must sit on laps

Operated by Viagens Machu Picchu

Is this one for you?This works well if you want to see the main Sacred Valley sites in one day without arranging separate transport, entry fees, and timing — the fixed itinerary and included guide handle the logistics, and the choice to either return to Cusco or catch the train to Machu Picchu keeps your options open.