Kathmandu, the city of temples—is an open museum especially, for foreigners. The arts, culture, architecture and religious sites of the city draw more than a million tourists every year. Dwelling in Kathmandu simply turns pages of history one after another taking you 2000 years back. To sum up, it is a unique city rich in traditions, culture, arts, architecture, glory and many more.
Kathmandu City Tour is a unique experience of the lifetime where you will visit four UNESCO listed World Heritage Sites—Kathmandu Durbar Square, Swoyambhunath, Pashupatinath and Bouddhanath. Kathmandu Durbar Square is located at the heart of the capital. It covers an area of five acres. As impressed in stone scriptures, Lichhavi Kings used to administer entire Kathmandu Valley from here. Many temples and palaces were built here in their time in the 3rd century but no remains are found till date.
The latest Archaeology study says that the site started inhabiting here since the 7th century. Ratna Malla developed the site drastically in 1484. He changed the then existing palaces into Royal Palace. Many palaces and temples were built here since then by Malla and Shah Kings.
Kathmandu Durbar Square covers an area of five acres. The inner and outer part divides entire site. Hanuman Dhoka Palace is located in the inner part. Lord Hanuman (Monkey God) is enshrined outside the palace giving name Hanuman Dhoka Palace. Pratap Malla founded Hanuman outside this palace in the 17th century. Sundari and Mohan Chowk were also built by him at the same time around.
In the outer sphere, there are Kasthamandap, Shiva-Parvati temple, Kumari Ghar and many other temples. Kashthamandap and Kumari Temple are in reconstruction phase as they were turned into rubble by the massive earthquake of 2015. The name Kathmandu was derived from Kasthamandap. Swayambhunath Stupa is located on the west of Basantapur Durbar Square. It is one of the prime sites for Buddhist and other tourists. Swayambhunath is a dome-shaped white structure located in the cliff. It is also popularly known as Monkey Temple because large numbers of monkey live here. The literal meaning of Swoyambunath is ‘Self Existing’. Legends say that the stupa used to exist even at that time when the entire valley was nothing more than a lake. Manjushree later arrived here and cut the gorge at Chovar to pass out the water creating the valley a nice place for settlement.
Pashupatinath Temple is the important religious site for the Hindus of all over the world. Lord Shiva is worshipped here in the form of Linga. There are four faces of Lord Shiva carved in Linga. Like Swayambhunath, Bouddhanath is also the popular holy site for Buddhist. It is one of the largest stupas of South Asia. Brick wall fences the entire stupa. It is an octagonal base dome-shaped architect. Many Buddhist rotate this stupa clockwise with prayer wheels in their hands.