Sacred Incas and wild Amazon of Peru

True enough, you’ll jump on the Belmond Andean Explorer train and chug through the grassy Andean plains, witnessing dawn break over Lake Titicaca before leaving your carriage to explore its islands and time-honoured cultures. On this luxury holiday, Peru’s ancient capital and the gateway to the fabled Sacred Valley, Cusco, is next. This is firmly in Inca territory and you’ll really get to unpick the inner workings of how the dynasty once operated, with visits to fortresses like Sacsayhuaman and Ollantaytambo, the town of Chinchero, the Maras salt mines and the village of Huilloc, where you can enjoy lunch just as the Incas would have. We couldn’t have let you unravel the Sacred Valley without taking a Machu Picchu trip: a legendary citadel that doesn’t reveal all of its secrets straight away. That’s why you’ll visit twice and a guided tour each time will gradually add more pieces to this pre-Columbian puzzle.

After whizzing back to Cusco on the train, it’s time to head further off-grid. Fly to Iquitos, the world’s largest city that cannot be reached by road, and the frontier to Peru’s slice of the Amazon. Here you’ll board a four-night Amazon River luxury cruise that gives you seemingly limitless opportunities to spot wildlife like iguanas, macaws, sloths and monkeys. Carry on fording the jungle-fringed waters, often joined by inquisitive Amazon river dolphins, before hopping off the boat to meet remote Amazonian communities and witness the origins of the Amazon River, a wild waterfall where the Ucayali and Marañón rivers collide. Glide back to Iquitos, but before you fly back to Lima for your final night in Peru, you’ll see the work locals are putting in to protect this fragile wilderness at the Amazon Rescue Center, where injured manatees and dolphins are nursed and rehabilitated back to full strength so they can return to the emerald wilds of the Amazon.