Machu Picchu

Where it sits. Machu Picchu occupies a saddle between two peaks on a ridge 2,430 metres above sea level, roughly 400 metres above the Urubamba river, which loops around three sides of it in a deep gorge. The site is in the Cusco region, some 75 kilometres north-west of the city of Cusco, at the point where the high Andes break down into the cloud forest of the upper Amazon basin — which is why orchids, tree ferns and hummingbirds grow among ruins built by a mountain people. The pointed peak behind the classic photograph is Huayna Picchu; the larger, gentler summit behind the viewer is Machu Picchu Mountain. Cloud rises from the valley most mornings and burns off through the middle of the day, and the site's appearance changes hour to hour with it.

The story behind it. Archaeological consensus dates construction to the middle of the fifteenth century, under the Inca ruler Pachacuti, and reads the complex as a royal estate rather than a city — a retreat and ceremonial centre for the ruler's lineage, supported by perhaps 500 to 750 residents, most of them seasonal. It was abandoned around the time of the Spanish conquest, in the 1530s to 1570s, and was never found by the Spanish, which is why it survived intact. Local farming families always knew it was there. It entered global awareness in July 1911, when the Yale lecturer Hiram Bingham, guided by the farmer Melchor Arteaga, climbed the ridge while searching for the last Inca capital of Vilcabamba. UNESCO inscribed it in 1983.

What you actually see today. The masonry is the point. The finest structures use ashlar blocks of white granite cut so precisely that the joints take no mortar and barely a blade — the Temple of the Sun with its curved wall and solstice windows, the Room of the Three Windows, and the Intihuatana, a carved stone outcrop aligned to the sun. Around them, more than 600 agricultural terraces step down the slopes over engineered layers of stone, gravel and soil that drain the site's heavy rainfall; a spring-fed channel feeds sixteen linked fountains. The whole complex is divided into an upper ceremonial sector and a lower residential and industrial one, with a broad central plaza between. Llamas graze the terraces, kept mostly to manage the grass.

On screen. Machu Picchu has been filmed less often than its fame suggests, because permission is tightly controlled. Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) opens with its conquistador column descending a cloud-filled Inca stairway in this area before the production moved to the rivers of the Peruvian Amazon — one of the great opening sequences in cinema, and shot with a crew of a few dozen. Walter Salles filmed The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) at the site, following the young Ernesto Guevara's actual 1952 visit. In late 2021 Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023) became the first Hollywood tentpole permitted to shoot on the citadel itself, with a production of several hundred people and a ceremonial blessing before filming. And the most famous "Peruvian" temple in film history is not Peruvian at all: the jungle prologue of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was shot on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.

Getting there. There is no road to the site. Trains run from Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley, and from Cusco's Poroy station in season, along the Urubamba gorge to the town of Machupicchu Pueblo, also called Aguas Calientes; from there shuttle buses climb the Hiram Bingham road's switchbacks in about twenty-five minutes, or walkers take a steep stone stair in ninety. The alternative is to arrive on foot: the classic Inca Trail covers 43 kilometres over four days, crossing the Warmiwañusca pass at 4,215 metres and entering through the Sun Gate at dawn. Permits for that route are capped and sell out months ahead; the Salkantay and Lares treks are less regulated alternatives.

Practicalities and timing. Entry is by timed ticket on a fixed circuit, with a daily visitor cap, a required guide on some circuits and separate limited permits for Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu Mountain — book well ahead, especially for June to August. The dry season runs May to September; the Inca Trail closes each February for maintenance, and the wet months bring landslides and cloud that can hide everything. At 2,430 metres the site is lower than Cusco, so most altitude discomfort is felt before arriving. Steep, uneven stone steps without handrails make the main circuits impassable for wheelchairs, though a limited accessible route and viewpoint arrangement exists on request. Bring rain gear in any month.