Nazca Travel Guide

The Nazca Lines are giant geoglyphs on the Nazca plateau of southern Peru, etched by the Nazca culture (c. 500 BC – 600 AD) into the arid desert — over 800 straight lines, geometric figures and biomorphic images like the hummingbird, spider, monkey and 'astronaut.' Their scale demands viewing from a small plane.

The Antonini Museum, located in the Chiado district of Lisbon, Portugal, is the former residence of the 18th-century Portuguese nobleman Antonini, now a museum displaying Lisbon urban life and Portuguese noble culture. The building was rebuilt in the Pombal style after the 1755 earthquake, with the interior retaining the original appearance of an 18th-century noble residence. It displays antique furniture, Portuguese painted tiles, silver, porcelain, and family portraits. Though small in scale, the museum is exquisite and elegant, offering a glimpse into the lifestyle of Lisbon's nobility during the Pombal era. It is an important stop on the Chiado cultural walking route, providing visitors with an intimate look at Portuguese aristocratic life and the decorative arts that defined the era.

The Cantalloc Aqueducts sit on the Nasca plateau of Peru, a subterranean water system engineered by the Nasca culture around 1,500 years ago. Along the buried channels the builders raised spiral ventilation shafts — still-visible funnel-shaped wells — that drew groundwater from the aquifer and allowed crews to descend for cleaning and repair. Parts of the system still irrigate oasis farmland today. Wandering among the great funnel mouths scattered like stars across the desert reveals the hydraulic genius with which the Nasca tamed aridity to sustain a civilization, and helps explain the water logic behind the famous Nasca lines.

Chauchilla Cemetery lies deep in the Nazca desert of southern Peru, a pre-Inca burial ground famed for its naturally mummified remains. The hyper-arid climate desiccated the bodies so completely that they survived for nearly a millennium, and visitors walking the wooden boardwalks can see fetal-positioned mummies with hair and burial wrappings still intact, alongside scattered ceramics. In the hushed silence of the dunes, the site speaks of how the Nazca and neighboring cultures understood death, the afterlife and the natural world.