Kathmandu, Chitwan and Pokhara Honeymoon Package

You are met on arrival at Tribhuvan and driven to a heritage hotel in Kathmandu - a restored Newar building or a garden property away from the traffic. Flowers and a cake are in the room. The rest of the day is deliberately free: most people arrive tired and there is no sense starting the valley on the first afternoon. A drink on the terrace or a short walk through Thamel is plenty. Your guide meets you in the evening to run through the nine days and to adjust them to what you want.

A private car and guide for the day. Hanuman Dhoka, the old royal square, with the Kumari Ghar where the living goddess appears at a carved upper window and the palace courtyards behind it. Then Swayambhunath before the heat, up the stone stairway to the stupa on its hill with the valley below and the painted eyes looking out in four directions. In the afternoon we cross to Patan for the Durbar Square, the stone-carved Krishna Mandir and an hour in the Patan Museum, with a long lunch in a courtyard restaurant in the middle of it. Nothing today is rushed.

Bhaktapur through the afternoon, once the coaches have gone - the Fifty-Five Window Palace, the Golden Gate, Nyatapola above Taumadhi Square, Pottery Square with the wheels turning in the open, and the back lanes where the wood carving still happens. It is the least museum-like of the three royal cities and the one worth wandering. Boudhanath is timed for dusk, with the butter lamps lit and the kora full, and the chanting starting from several monasteries at once. Dinner afterwards in the Boudha quarter.

A short flight south to Bharatpur - twenty-five minutes rather than six hours by road - and a transfer to a lodge on the Chitwan park boundary. The change from a valley at 1,400m to flat, hot, green Terai at under 200m is total, and it is the other half of Nepal. The afternoon is for settling in and for the walk down to the Rapti at sunset. A Tharu cultural programme in the village after dinner.

Out at first light by private jeep with a naturalist for rhino, deer and, with luck, tiger - Chitwan holds one of the world's strongest rhino populations and sightings are close to certain. Later a dugout canoe on the Rapti past gharial and mugger crocodile with the birdlife along the banks, and a guided walk in the buffer-zone forest. The middle of the day is long and empty by design. Out again in the late afternoon, and dinner on the riverbank.

West to Pokhara, either on a short flight or by road through the Terai and up into the hills, which takes about five hours and is a genuinely scenic drive along the Trishuli. Pokhara sits at 800m on Phewa Lake with Machhapuchhre almost 7,000m above it, and the room is chosen for that view. The evening is free at Lakeside - a boat on the lake, or the walk along the shore road and dinner by the water.

Sarangkot before dawn, privately and ahead of the shared jeeps, for the light coming up on Annapurna, Machhapuchhre and Dhaulagiri with the lake in mist below. Back for a long breakfast. In the afternoon a private boat across Phewa to Tal Barahi and on to the foot of the ridge for the climb to the World Peace Pagoda, which gives the best single view of the lake, the town and the range together. A special dinner in the evening.

Nothing planned. Paragliding from Sarangkot, a mountain flight along the Annapurnas, a helicopter into the Annapurna sanctuary and back before lunch, Devi's Fall and the Gupteshwor cave, or the walk up to Australian Camp - all can be arranged the same morning. Equally, the day can be spent entirely on the hotel terrace, which after a week of moving is what a good many couples choose.

A last morning by the lake, then the twenty-five minute flight back to Kathmandu. A day room is held at the hotel so you have somewhere to change and rest, and there is time for any last shopping in Thamel. The airport transfer is arranged for whenever your international flight departs, and your guide sees you through check-in.