▶ Watch the guide Give Kathmandu four days and split them by kingdom rather than by checklist. One for the old city on foot, one for the two great Buddhist sites, Boudhanath in the morning and Swayambhunath before sunset. Spend the third in Patan, where the finest square in the valley sits beside the best museum in Nepal. Keep the fourth for Bhaktapur or a viewpoint on the rim.
Kathmandu is not one city but three former kingdoms that grew into each other. Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur were rival Newar capitals until 1769, each with its own palace square and its own reasons to outbuild the others, and the competition left seven UNESCO monument zones inside a valley you can cross in an hour.
The largest stupa in Nepal and the centre of Tibetan Buddhist life in the valley. A white dome the width of a city block carries the painted eyes of the Buddha, and the plaza fills twice a day with people walking clockwise past 108 prayer wheels. Sit above it at dusk when the butter lamps go on.
Nepal's holiest Hindu site, in continuous use for well over a thousand years. The gilded pagoda is open to Hindus only, so most visitors watch from the terraces on the east bank, where cremations run through the day in full view. It is confronting and entirely ordinary here, which is the point.
The palace square of the Malla kings, and the densest concentration of Newar architecture in the country: around fifty temples and courtyards in a space that still works as a public crossroads. Kumari Ghar houses the living goddess, who appears at a carved upstairs window on her own schedule.
A stupa on a hill west of the old city, reached by a stone stairway of 365 steps. The climb is the experience, and the reward is the only free panorama of the whole valley from inside the ring road, with the stupa's painted eyes above.
Patan's square is smaller and better composed than Kathmandu's: a single line of temples facing the Malla palace, with a seventeenth-century shrine carved entirely from stone. The palace holds the Patan Museum, which is the best museum in Nepal by a distance.
The third royal city, and the one that still reads as a medieval town rather than a district of a capital. Cars are kept out of the core, so the squares run into each other on foot. The 2015 earthquake hit here hardest, which makes the craft workshops feel current rather than preserved.
The old city's working market, a six-way junction where the trade routes to Tibet and India met and the produce still arrives before dawn. It is the least curated hour in Kathmandu and the one that explains how the city fed itself for six hundred years.
A neo-classical garden built in the 1920s for a Rana field marshal, restored and reopened in 2007. Behind one wall on the edge of Thamel there are pavilions named for the six Nepali seasons and a lawn people sleep on. The only place in the tourist quarter where the traffic stops being audible.
The royal palace until 2008, when Nepal abolished the monarchy and turned the building into a museum with most of the furniture left where it was. The reason most visitors come is the garden, where the wing in which the royal family were shot in 2001 was demolished and the footprint left marked and empty.
The valley rim blocks the mountains from the city, so the standard fix is to get above it. The cable car climbs to about 2,550 metres in ten minutes, and on a clear morning the ridge line runs from Annapurna to the Everest range. Cloud closes it regularly, so decide on the morning.
A five-metre Vishnu reclining on snake coils in a water tank, carved from a single block of basalt. A functioning shrine, busiest at dawn.
A Gelugpa monastery above Boudha, known internationally for the meditation courses it has run since the 1970s. Day visitors are welcome in the grounds.
The white nunnery on a ridge above Ramkot, a steep drive west for a terrace view across the whole valley. Far quieter than any of the UNESCO sites.
A gilded Buddhist courtyard monastery north of Patan Durbar Square, layered with metalwork on every surface. Leather is not taken past the door.
One of only two five-tiered temples in the valley, over two spring-fed tanks in northern Patan. Residential and unpolished, which is much of its appeal.
A Kali shrine in a gorge at the southern edge of the valley. Animal sacrifice is still practised on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so choose the day deliberately.
The country's oldest museum, below Swayambhunath, split across buildings for art, natural history and a military collection. The sculpture galleries are the reason.
In a 1970s brick complex by Carl Pruscha at Boudha. The archive documents the foreign architects and photographers who recorded the valley from the 1950s.
A private museum in Thamel, opened in 2021, showing paubha and thangka painting alongside contemporary Nepali artists. The easiest serious gallery to reach.
The gallery that has shown most of Nepal's significant contemporary artists since 1987, in a converted Rana stable block. Exhibitions change monthly.
A large exhibition hall that hosts the Kathmandu Triennale and the biggest group shows in the city. Check what is on before planning a day.
The Nepali tasting-menu restaurant inside Dwarika's, served in brass and copper on a low table, from six to twenty-two courses depending on what you book.
A restored nineteenth-century Rana building serving Nepali set meals across several floors, with live music. The building is half the reason to book.
Opened in 1995 by a Neapolitan chef and still the pizza everyone in Thamel names first. A queue of trekkers eating their first proper meal in three weeks.
Middle Eastern and vegetarian cooking on Mandala Street, eaten cross-legged at low tables with shoes at the door. Full from lunch onward.
Newar cooking on a terrace in Kirtipur, ordered off a board of small plates. A local room rather than a tourist one, and the view comes free.
The restaurant inside the Garden of Dreams, with tables on the veranda of the Rana pavilion. The only cafe near Thamel where you cannot hear a motorbike.
The Nepali coffee chain that started in Thamel in 1999 and roasts beans grown in the country's hill districts. The original still has the best balcony.
A serious espresso bar in Jhamsikhel roasting Nepali single origins, and the place to understand that Nepal grows coffee as well as tea.
An upstairs room off Thamel's main lane, papered floor to ceiling with the notes of people heading up or coming down. The trekking city's common room.
A rooftop above Patan Durbar Square looking down the temple line. Take the corner table and stay for the light changing on the brick.
The pote sellers work from a covered arcade, threading glass beads into the necklaces Nepali women wear as marriage jewellery. Made to order in minutes.
Patan has been the valley's metalworking city for centuries, and the lanes behind its square still hold the workshops: lost-wax bronzes and singing bowls.
Several streets of down jackets, duffels and rental sleeping bags, mixing genuine brands with convincing copies. Buy boots at home.
The established fair-trade handicraft shops, selling felt, dhaka weaving and paper from producer groups across Nepal at fixed prices.
The lanes around the stupa hold working painting schools where students spend years on mineral pigment. Ask to watch before you buy.
The tourist quarter: trekking shops, guest houses and the agencies that sell every permit in Nepal. Stay here on a first trip and move out on a second.
The Tibetan quarter around the stupa, with monasteries and a daily rhythm set by the kora. Calmer than anywhere central.
A separate city across the Bagmati with its own durbar square and craft guilds. The best base if you would rather look at architecture than shop for a duffel.
The expat and NGO district of southern Patan: coffee roasters, restaurants from half a dozen countries and the valley's best bookshops.
The hippie-trail centre of Kathmandu in the late 1960s. A quiet lane of old guest houses now, and closer to the monuments than Thamel is.
A ridge village at about 2,195 metres on the eastern rim, and the standard sunrise trip. On a clear morning the tower gives a long line of Himalaya.
The oldest temple in Nepal by most accounts, on a hilltop above Bhaktapur, with a fifth-century inscription among the country's earliest dated records.
A Newar town on the valley's eastern edge with a mountain panorama, and a three-hour walk from there to one of the most important Buddhist sites in Nepal.
The forested park on the northern rim, with graded trails through oak and rhododendron. Nagi Gompa sits an hour in and makes a shorter target.
A hill town that resisted the Gorkha conquest and was punished for it, now a quiet Newar settlement with the best Newar food in the valley.
Tibetan and Himalayan new year, celebrated hardest in Boudha with masked dances and fresh prayer flags.
The colour festival at the full moon in Falgun. Durbar Square is the centre of it, and white clothes are a mistake.
Bhaktapur's new year festival in mid-April, when teams haul a chariot carrying Bhairava through the town.
Patan's chariot festival for the rain god, and the longest in Nepal: a tower of a chariot dragged through the city over weeks.
The Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death marked on the full moon of Baisakh. The stupas are lit and circled all day.
Kathmandu's own festival, eight days for the rain god, with masked lakhe dances and the Kumari pulled through on a chariot.
The longest Hindu festival in Nepal, fifteen days honouring Durga, with much of the country closing down.
Five days of lights for Laxmi, with oil lamps and marigold garlands on every doorway and singing groups going house to house.
Nepal's only international airport, about 6 kilometres east of Thamel, with a free shuttle between the terminals. The drive into the city is short and the traffic is not, so allow an hour.
Sajha Yatayat runs the valley's green public buses on the main routes. Fares are a fraction of a taxi and the buses are slow and crowded. Everything else on the road is a private microbus.
Metered taxis exist and the meters are rarely used, so agree the fare or use an app. Pathao and inDrive both price up front, and both need a local number.
Tourist buses to Pokhara and Chitwan leave early and take most of the day. Domestic flights cover the same routes in half an hour. Mountain weather cancels flights routinely, so build in a spare day.
Steamed or fried dumplings filled with buffalo, chicken or vegetables, with a tomato and sesame achar.
Lentil soup, rice, a vegetable curry and pickles, refilled until you stop eating.
The Newar ceremonial platter: beaten rice, spiced buffalo, black soybeans and egg, served cold on one plate.
A thin rice-flour crepe topped with minced buffalo, egg or vegetables.
A savoury patty of ground black lentil, fried crisp outside and soft in the middle.
A ring of fermented rice-flour batter deep fried to order, crisp at the edge and chewy inside.
The king of yoghurts, set in clay pots in Bhaktapur from buffalo milk. Thick enough to hold a spoon upright.
A steamed rice-flour parcel shaped to a point and filled with molasses and sesame paste.
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