10 Best museums in Cusco

The capital of the Inca Empire, Cuzco has much to offer, even though the empire fell more than five hundred years ago. In the centre of the Peruvian Andes, Cuzco stands as a city that has combined the indigenous and specifically Inca past with the Spanish and finally the Peruvian, so there are many things to see and do in the city that tourists love to visit.

Because Cuzco is such a remarkable source of cultural syncretism, museums have flourished. There are many religious, archaeological, regional and even coca museums in the city. Would you like to visit some of these marvellous museums?

Cuzco is known for its Inca power, but Spanish religious domination left its mark. An essential plan to delve into the history of the city is to book your ticket for the Museum of Religious Art, a beautiful space where you can enjoy the city's colonial past from a Catholic perspective.

The best thing about this museum is that you will see the Archbishop's Palace of Cuzco, where the world-famous Stone of the 12 angles is located, a diorite rock with twelve angles that fit in perfectly with the rest of the surrounding rocks. This is an example of the complexity of Inca architecture and you will want to have your photo taken in front of the stone.

Inside the museum you can admire the finest colonial religious paintings, with a collection that also includes carvings and altarpieces inlaid with gold. In the Corpus Christi Hall you will find 12 canvases that will dazzle you, but you can also see regional wonders in the Golden Hall, the Zodiac Hall and the Orchard Hall, among others.

Practical information

• Location: Calle Herrajes 38, Cuzco 08002, Peru.
• Price: around €8.
• Opening hours: 8am-6pm, Monday to Saturday. Closed on Sundays.

Religious life is always captivating for those who love history and culture. In Cuzco, you cannot miss the Museum of the Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena, which is located in the majestic Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena. This monastery was built in 1601 over an Inca construction, of which some columns and walls are still preserved.

Inside the monastery, a museum with a permanent exhibition was created in 1971. Initially, the idea was to show the life of the cloistered nuns throughout history, as well as the artistic productions of the nuns themselves. However, this concept gradually changed and the museum now includes a beautiful collection of colonial religious art, as well as popular art.

The canvases with religious images are the most notable, but there are also sculptures and even crockery used by the nuns. At times, these exhibits, permanent or temporary, can take a back seat to the beauty of the monastery and its architecture, which will take you back to the colonial past and the quietness of a convent.

Practical information

• Location: Calle Santa Catalina, 401, Cuzco.
• Price: around €8.
• Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm.

One of the most imposing colonial works is the Cathedral of Cuzco and you can buy tickets to visit its museum. This church built in the early 16th century with a small chapel is known as the Basilica of the Virgin of the Assumption. A long and imposing church that was built on the same site where the Incas had their government palace, in what is an example of colonial rule.

To get to the Cathedral and its respective museum, you only have to be in front of the Plaza de Armas of Cuzco. In truth, the cathedral is a complex, which includes the Temple of El Triunfo, the first chapel that was erected as a cathedral and the Temple of the Holy Family. All this means that within the complex there are 11 chapels that took almost a century and a half to complete.

When you are in the museum you can see colonial liturgical elements, as well as paintings and carvings mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries. One of the most beautiful is the canvas of The Last Supper, the work of Marcos Zapata. Also the anonymous El Señor de los Temblores is a favourite among tourists. The idea when you are here is to have a great overview of colonial architecture and art, in a memorable place.

Practical information

• Location: Plaza de Armas, Cuzco, Peru.
• Price: Admission to the Cuzco Cathedral is around €18.
• Opening hours: daily from 10am to 6pm.

Despite all the colonial influence, Cuzco is known for having been the capital of the Inca empire, with all that that implies. The Museum of Pre-Columbian Art is the main museum of its kind in the city and houses more than 400 pieces of art in a phenomenal location, the Casona Cabrera, in the heart of the city centre. This museum depends on the BBVA Foundation and its collection belongs to the Larco Museum in Lima.

Most of the museum's rooms are divided according to the material of the artwork. There are rooms dedicated to wood, shells, silver and gold, but there are also others that try to show the archaeological pieces according to the regions of Peru: south, north and centre. Finally, there are other rooms dedicated to explaining the historical evolution of the pre-Columbian world: the origins, before the Incas and the Inca imperial expansion.

The composition of this museum will make your tour like a trip to pre-Columbian America, where the different indigenous empires fought for power. Here you will be able to see pieces at least 3,000 years old in a beautiful building such as the Casa Cabrera, which before colonial times was a school for the Inca nobility. For all these reasons, it is one of the best things to do in Cuzco.

Practical information

• Location: Plaza de las Nazarenas 231, Cuzco.
• Price: For foreigners, general admission is about 5 €. Foreign students, half price.
• Opening hours: daily from 8am to 10pm.

Do you want to stay in the pre-Hispanic mood? The National University of San Antonio Abad del Cuzco offers locals and tourists a beautiful museum dedicated to specifically Inca art. Cuzco was the capital of the Inca Empire, one of the most important in all of pre-Columbian history and this museum recognises the importance of this empire in the regional and global context.

This is not a very big museum, so you can do a good tour in an hour, unless you are too detailed. The idea of this museum is to show you how life was lived in the Inca Empire, with a lot of emphasis on ceramics, instruments and real mummies, where you can see how the Incas treated death.

The archaeological finds in this museum usually come from the Cuzco region, so it is also a regional museum where even skulls of ancient inhabitants of the Inca Empire who lived in that area are displayed. Are you up for seeing these mummies and other artefacts?

Practical information

• Location: Cuesta Almirante, 103, Cuzco, Peru.
• Price: around €4.
• Opening hours: Monday to Friday, from 8am to 6pm and public holidays from 9am to 4pm.

It is well known that Cuzco is a city and department known worldwide for its pre-Hispanic influence, but this is not the only type of art you can see in this city. The Museum of Contemporary Art of Cuzco, founded in 1995, is one of the most modern museums in all of Peru and was founded on the initiative of the mayor's office. In fact, the museum is located on the premises of the Municipal Palace.

Practically all the works of art in the Museum of Contemporary Art are from the 20th century and there are more than 300 of them, which allows them to have more than 50 temporary exhibitions every year. Most of them are focused on Peruvian artists, but being Cuzco such a touristic city, this museum usually receives different Latin American events of contemporary art.

The museum has mainly three exhibition rooms, so you can easily walk around it in about 45 minutes and then continue with your day. Don't forget to take pictures with the works of Edilberto Mérida Rodríguez or with the paintings of Remigia Mendoza or Francisco Olazo.

Practical information

• Location: Calle Espinar 270, Cuzco 08002, Peru.
• Price: Most of the time there is no entrance fee.
• Opening hours: 9 am to 6 pm, Monday to Saturday.

As you can see, there are many things to see and do in Cuzco. Specifically, in front of the Plaza de San Francisco in Cuzco is the Temple and Convent of San Francisco, one of the most iconic of the entire highland city. Originating in 1534, the Spanish Franciscan friars who arrived in the city gave birth to this beautiful church, which was destroyed in 1645 and rebuilt in 1652.

This church is really important in Cuzco, since, together with its convent, it became one of the main religious symbols of the city. Inside the convent, in the cloister, a giant canvas is exhibited, called the Epilogue of the Franciscan order in a tree with twelve branches. According to some experts, it is the largest painting in the entire continent and one of the oldest in the city, because it shows the evolution of the members of the order until the 17th century.

In addition to this canvas, there are many other works such as sculptures, carvings, religious figures, crypts and an enormous amount of colonial paintings, mainly with Christian motifs, but with many links to the indigenous world. Are you going to miss the opportunity to see the largest painting in the continent?

Practical information

• Location: opposite San Francisco Square.
• Price: just over €1.
• Opening hours: 9am-6pm, Monday to Sunday.

Although all over the world coca is related to drugs, the truth is that this is a millenary plant that in the Inca world has had an extremely strong meaning, which has remained present in history. Coca related to the industrial drug is only a small part of this plant and if you go to the Coca Museum in Cuzco, you will be able to delve into its past.

Inside a beautiful colonial mansion, the Coca Museum has three exhibition rooms designed to show, through panels, the history of coca in this region of the Andes. Here you can learn about the indigenous origin and its magical and religious significance, as well as the scientific, cultural and social understanding of coca in Peru and Latin America.

This museum does not shy away from debate and is therefore a place for encounters. Here you can also see the many products made from coca, such as drinks and sweets, as well as textiles and artistic representations of coca. Are you going to miss the most controversial museum in Cuzco?

Practical information

• Location: Plaza San Blas 618, 2nd level, Cuzco.
• Price: around 2,5 €. For students, admission is half price.
• Opening hours: from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Don't let the size fool you: the Coricancha site museum is small, but it is among the most important in the region, because it is where the main archaeological finds of the pre-Columbian civilisations in the Cuzco region are exhibited. Here you can see fragments of pottery, instruments, tools and lithic pieces both Inca and pre-Inca.

In the five rooms of the museum you can also see different reconstructions from the archaeological finds, so you can see what life was like before the Spaniards in the area, all based on the excavations at the site of Coricancha, which in Quechua means courtyard of gold. Most of these finds were found in the late 1990s.

Other aspects that tourists like the most are the large models that reconstruct the Inca city and, specifically, Coricancha. There are also mummies and some perforations of skulls dating from the Inca period. I assure you that this archaeological site is well worth a visit. If you are interested in this subject, you can also consider going to the archaeological site of Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco.

Practical information

• Location: Av. El Sol 526, Cuzco 08002, Peru.
• Price: around 2,5 €.
• Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 8am to 5pm, Sundays from 2pm to 4pm.

Many years ago, at the beginning of the 16th century, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega lived in this house. Garcilaso was one of the first mestizos of renown in the American continent, because from his letters he exalted his Inca culture, as well as the Hispanic one. In addition to his work as a writer and poet, the Inca Garcilaso owes much of the documentary record of the Inca culture and its past histories, which formed part of the oral tradition.

Today, the Garcilaso house is included in many of the best tours of Cuzco, as it functions as the Regional Historical Museum of Cuzco, which is a monument and heritage of the country. This building has its origins in the Inca empire, but was rebuilt by the Spanish and acquired by the father of Inca Garcilaso. When you are inside, you can take a walk through the thirteen permanent exhibition rooms that tell the history of the city.

Also in this museum, you will see a plurality of exhibits, as at least six rooms are dedicated to archaeology, while another seven are focused on art and ethnography, mainly indigenous. This will allow you to have a fairly varied tour with plenty to choose from.

Practical information

• Location: Calle Heladeros s/n, Casa del Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Cuzco.
• Price: admission included in the Cuzco Tourist Ticket.
• Opening hours: Monday to Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.