Journeys stopping off in Cusco

Belmond has become a byword for luxury train travel, and South America’s first luxury sleeping-car train has become the way to explore the austere beauty of the altiplano south of Cusco.

The two-night tour between Cusco and Arequipa takes in the journey takes in the floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca, cave art thousands of years old, and the World Heritage Site of Arequipa. Wild grasses cover the hillsides rising up to snowy summits until the train descends to more fertile country dotted with adobe villages.

As a new train, it’s beautifully designed and has every amenity, but it inevitably lacks that sense of authenticity from times gone by.