World Heritage Sites in Kathmandu

The most sacred Hindu site in Nepal, spread across both banks of the Bagmati in the east of the city. The main temple admits Hindus only, so for most visitors the site is the complex around it, and that is where the substance is: the cremation ghats on the river, the sadhus, the row of Shiva shrines on the far bank and the Gorakhnath temple above. Late afternoon is the time to come, when the ghats are busiest and the light is low. Be careful with a camera near a cremation: ask, or do not photograph.

The royal square of the old city, holding the Hanuman Dhoka palace, the Taleju temple and the Kumari Ghar, where Kathmandu's living goddess still resides and appears at a window. This is the zone the 2015 earthquake damaged most severely: several temples came down completely and reconstruction has continued since, so expect scaffolding, hoardings and the occasional closure. The palace museum is included in the ticket and is the best single explanation of the Malla and Shah periods you will find in the valley.

About 13 km east of Kathmandu, in a walled town that kept its medieval street plan more completely than anywhere else in the valley. The square itself holds the 55 Window Palace and the Golden Gate, and the town's tallest building, the five-tiered Nyatapola temple, stands a few streets away in Taumadhi Square rather than in the durbar square itself. Bhaktapur charges its own town entry fee on top of anything else. It rewards most of a day, not an hour between other stops.

Across the Bagmati in Lalitpur, and the best preserved of the three royal squares, which makes it the one to choose if you only have time for one. The Krishna Mandir is carved entirely in stone rather than brick and timber, unusual here, and the Sundari Chowk courtyard holds a sunken royal bath. The Patan Museum inside the old palace is widely held to be the finest museum in Nepal. Restoration after 2015 was extensive and is largely complete, so it reads as a whole.

A stupa on Semgu hill on the western edge of the valley, reached by a stairway of 365 steps, and one of the oldest religious sites in Nepal. The painted eyes on the harmika look out in four directions over the city, and the gilt spire above them was repaired after 2015. The resident rhesus macaques are the reason for the English nickname, and also the reason to keep food out of sight: do not carry it openly up the steps and do not feed them, which is how visitors get bitten.

The largest stupa in Nepal, about 11 km from the city centre, and the centre of Tibetan Buddhism in the country since the Tibetan community grew here after 1959. The dome is ringed by a walkway that fills at dusk with people circling clockwise past prayer wheels, with monasteries and rooftop cafes behind. The spire cracked in the 2015 earthquake, was dismantled and rebuilt, and was reconsecrated in 2016, so everything above the dome is new work on an old base.

The oldest Hindu temple still in use in the valley, on a ridge above Bhaktapur, and by a wide margin the quietest of the seven zones. The stone inscription in the courtyard is dated 464 AD and is the oldest known inscription in Nepal, which is the single most remarkable object on this page. The carved struts and the metalwork are the finest Newar craftsmanship among the seven. It takes a short drive or an uphill walk from Bhaktapur, and almost nobody makes it.