Audioguides Katmandou

Kathmandu sits in a valley at 1,400 metres, surrounded by hills and closer to the Himalaya than any other city of its size. The old city core around Durbar Square predates most European capitals, with temples, palaces, and courtyards that accumulate over centuries the way sediment does in a river. Kumari Chowk houses the living goddess, a young girl selected through an ancient ritual who makes periodic appearances at her window, and this perfectly encapsulates Kathmandu: the ancient and the everyday occupying exactly the same space.

The 2015 earthquake destroyed or damaged more than 700 monuments and killed nearly 9,000 people across Nepal, and the scars of that event are still visible in scaffolding around Durbar Square and in the rebuilt neighborhoods of Bhaktapur and Patan, which are technically separate cities in the valley but function as Kathmandu's outer rings.

Thamel, the tourist district, is useful for supplies and has good bookshops, but the real city is in the lanes of Asan, where spice sellers, metalworkers, and flower vendors operate in the shadow of temples that predate the Mughals.