PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

A nice, more reasonably priced alternative to Cusco's top two luxury hotels, Picoaga also occupies a historic building -- in this case a 17th-century mansion that once belonged to a Spanish nobleman, the marquis of Picoaga. Just minutes from the Plaza de Armas, the hotel is set around a lovely arcaded courtyard -- or, at least, one portion of it is. A newer wing is in a dated and much less appealing modern section at the rear of the hotel. Ask for a room in the front section overlooking the patio. Rooms there, about a third of the total, are larger, have high ceilings, and are decorated with colonial-style furniture and floral prints. Rooms are nice but certainly not over-the-top elegant. (Another tip: Request a room on the back side of the courtyard rather than one facing the street because traffic and street noise on Santa Teresa fires up right about 5:39am.) Picoaga has more colonial character than the Novotel Cusco, although the latter offers better service.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Peru, 4th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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