Bhaktapur Durbar Square

Bhaktapur is the third of the valley's royal cities and the one that feels least like a monument. Cars are largely kept out of the old town, the squares are used for drying grain and threshing, and potters still work in the open, which means you are walking through a functioning medieval city rather than a preserved one. The durbar square holds the Fifty-Five Window Palace and the Golden Gate, generally reckoned the finest piece of repoussé metalwork in Nepal. A short walk away, Taumadhi Square is dominated by Nyatapola, the tallest temple in the country at just over thirty metres, five storeys on a stepped plinth guarded by ascending pairs of wrestlers, elephants, lions, griffins and goddesses - each said to be ten times stronger than the pair below. Beyond that, Dattatreya Square with its fifteenth-century temple, the Peacock Window on the alley behind it, the wood-carving workshops, and Pottery Square where the wheels turn in the open and the pots dry in rows on the paving. This is the one place in the valley where an aimless wander is the right approach, so we build the day with room for it, and with a bowl of juju dhau - the local king curd, set in clay pots - somewhere in the middle. Five or six hours, and it is worth every one of them.