When it comes to the pre-Columbian past of Peru, most of us automatically and understandably think of the Incas. But there were many other cultures and civilizations in these lands, some of them much older than the Incas. Several of these elder civilizations originate in what is now desert regions up and down the country's coast north and south of its present-day capital, Lima. One example you've heard about is the Nazca people, because of their…

Some hotels and resorts throughout the world make a big deal out of their collections of painting and sculpture. But leave it to the Japanese to go all the way and actually build a hotel around an art museum. The wee island of Naoshima, in Japan's Inland Sea off the Honshu coast between Osaka and Hiroshima, has gotten quite the elegant little rep in recent years for its modern art museums, of all things, thanks to a local textbook publisher called Benesse. That includes the Chichu…