A two-night stay at the Belmond Hotel Monasterio in Cusco, in the aftermath of our journey to Machu Picchu, offered an exceptional opportunity to absorb the region’s history. Developers in the 1960s transformed this former 16th-century Spanish seminary, built on top of a grand Inca palace, into a hotel. In 1999, the Orient-Express Hotels (today the Belmond Hotel brand) started restoring the colonial Renaissance architecture.