SUMAQPROM PERUORIENT EXPRESS020 8747 8315 / journeylatinamerica.co.uk bookings, consultant advice and additional information 121 las casitas del colca Set on a ledge above the Colca river, the luxury Orient Express hotel provides a really relaxing place from which to enjoy excursions into the canyon. Scattered throughout the gardens are 20 individual cottages with private plunge pool and spacious rooms with classic furnishings and modern comforts (such as under-floor heating). In harmony with its surroundings, the hotel offers ambitious cuisine using produce from its own garden. There's a choice of excursions including guided walks, biking, horse riding and even cookery classes if you can drag yourself away from the spa and outdoor pool. Lodges are delightful and the food superb. Horse riding, cycling, all available plus a full spa (gorgeous!) Real escapism. EP, Wimbledon

J MARSHALL TRBAL EYE IMAGES / ALAMYETIENNE VAN CAMPFor the lover of history and bygone cultures, little-visited northern Peru has at least as much to offer as the celebrated south. Travel up the coast, to colonial Trujillo, the vast adobe desert city of Chan Chan and the treasures of Sipán; or venture inland to the northern highlands, embellished with the ruins of elusive civilisations, and you have a rich treat in store. The area is gradually being opened up to tourism. Road journeys are long and some still unpaved, but always offer views over a landscape dominated by nature.Colonial Cajamarca, set in fertile meadows and surrounded by aqueducts and other relics of Inca engineering, is just a few hours' scenic drive up into the mountains from Lima.From there, further on towards the Amazonbasin, or accessed by road from the port of Chiclayo, Chachapoyas is the gateway to a culture about which little is known but whose vestiges are monumental. At Kuelap the vast scale of the walls is unmatched anywhere in pre-Columbian Peru. These remote areas are only linked by road (mostly unpaved) and accessible only from May to October.You can visit the sites close to the northern coast at any time of the year. Prominent is the 1,700-year-old tomb of the Lord of Sipán (below), 'the archaeological discovery of the 20th Century'. The finds from the site?a vast quantity of gold and silver treasures?are on display at the Tumbes Reales Museum. You can continue from here by road to Trujillo via El Brujo, which houses richly-coloured murals discovered on a Moche pyramid. At Huanchaco on the coast close by, where fishermen steer their reed skiffs through the surf, visit Chan Chan, the huge adobe citadel of the Chimú Empire.Northern Peru122 Peru