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Plaza de Armas Review
Read our Cusco and Machu Picchu sights reviews. Or post your own.
Plaza de Armas
Fodor's Review:
The imposing plaza is a direct descendant of imperial Cusco's central square, which the Inca called the Haukaypata (the only name indicated on today's street signs) and which extended beyond the area covered by the present-day square as far as the Plaza del Regocijo. According to belief, it was the exact center of the Inca empire, Tawantinsuyo, the Four Corners of the Earth. Eight colonial portales, or covered arcades, now ring the plaza, one of Latin America's finest. Starting at the cathedral and going clockwise they bear religious or commercial names: Belén (Bethlehem); Carrizos (straw); la Compañía (Jesuits); Comercio (commerce); Confituría (preserves); Panes (breads); Harinas (flours); and Carnes (meats). Soft lighting bathes the plaza each evening and creates one of Cusco's quintessential postcard views. Each Sunday morning sees a military parade on the cathedral side of the plaza that draws hundreds of spectators and, as a sign of the times in today's Peru, a few protesters.
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