Kathmandu, NP

A no-frills Tibetan eatery down a Thamel alley that locals and trekkers rate for the best buff momos in the quarter, dough thin and filling juicy. The thukpa and tingmo are the cold-weather orders before or after a trek.

A Tibetan-Nepali kitchen on a quiet Thamel side street with a leafy garden that mutes the street noise. Reliable momos and Tibetan staples in a setting calm enough for a long, unhurried meal.

A Newari restaurant on a Patan rooftop with floor seating, traditional dress, and a view over the old Durbar Square rooftops. The choila and samay baji platters, washed down with home-brewed chyang, are the full Newari spread done right.

A smoky, cash-only Newari hole-in-the-wall right off Patan Durbar Square that has fed locals for generations on choila, bara, and beaten rice. No view, no English menu, just the real thing at local prices.

A restored 19th-century mansion where you sit on cushions for a long parade of Newari and Nepali courses with live folk music and dance each evening. The set-piece dinner for a first night, touristy in the best sense.

A buzzy meat-free Middle Eastern and Mediterranean spot in Thamel where you eat cross-legged on cushions over hummus, falafel, and big mezze platters. A welcome break for vegetarians and anyone momo-ed out, run by a long-standing Israeli-Nepali crew.

A long-running Thamel pizzeria run to genuine Italian standards, with a wood oven and imported touches that make it the city's reliable craving-fix for actual pizza. The antidote to a week of dal bhat that locals also rate.

A more refined Nepali restaurant set in a leafy Thamel courtyard, plating regional dishes with care and pouring a proper drinks list. The grown-up dinner when you want Nepali food without the cushions-and-show format.

A specialist in Thakali cuisine from the Annapurna region, whose signature is a brass-tray dal bhat with a dozen little dishes and free refills. The most satisfying lunch in the city and a master class in how good Nepali set meals can be.

The forested ridge along the valley's northern rim, laced with trails to the Shivapuri peak, Buddhist hermitages, and viewpoints over Kathmandu. A genuine half-day hike into cloud forest within reach of the city.

A ridge southwest of the city topped by a temple and, on clear mornings, a Himalayan skyline that includes Everest in the far distance. You can ride the cable car up and walk the gentle ridge trails, or hike the old pilgrim path the whole way.

A forested hill inside Nagarjun park climbing to the Jamacho stupa and a viewpoint over the valley, on a shaded trail thick with birds and the occasional deer. The closest proper forest walk to the city center.

A hilltop Newari town on the city's southwest edge, a tangle of brick lanes, temples, and weavers' workshops largely bypassed by tour groups. An easy walking circuit through living old-town streets with valley views off the ridge.

A widely praised museum of Newari and Hindu-Buddhist art set inside a restored palace wing on Patan Durbar Square, with bronze deities displayed and explained with rare clarity. Even museum-skeptics tend to rate this one.

Nepal's oldest museum, in Chhauni near Swayambhunath, sprawling across history, art, and a natural-history wing that ranges from royal weapons to stone sculpture. Uneven but the broadest single overview of the country's past.

A small museum near Boudhanath set in a striking modernist brick complex, dedicated to the architects and photographers who documented the valley in the 20th century. A quiet, design-minded counterpoint to the ancient temples.

An open square in Bhaktapur where potters still throw and sun-dry clay by hand, rows of black pots drying in the open between firings. A working artisan quarter you can watch, and try, rather than a staged demonstration.

The dense traveler quarter of Kathmandu, a warren of trekking shops, bars, and live-music venues that comes alive after dark. Touristy by definition but the easiest place to find a band, a rooftop drink, or a late meal.

Thamel's long-running live rock venue, where Nepali bands cover classics and play originals to a packed, sweaty floor most nights. The reliable late-night option when you want a band rather than a club.

The old royal plaza of the Kathmandu kingdom, a dense huddle of pagoda temples, courtyards, and the palace where kings were once crowned. Parts toppled in the 2015 quake and are still being rebuilt, which you can watch in progress beam by beam.

Many locals' favorite of the three royal squares, a tighter, better-preserved ensemble of Newari stone and metalwork across the river in Lalitpur. The Krishna Mandir, carved entirely from stone, is the standout among the temple-lined plaza.

The most intact of the medieval city centers, a car-free maze of brick lanes, temples, and workshops where Newari life still runs on old rhythms. Worth the trip east of the valley for the rare feeling of a living, not staged, old town.

One of the largest stupas in the world and the heart of Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal, its white dome and watchful painted eyes ringed by monasteries and pilgrims. The constant clockwise flow of people spinning prayer wheels is the draw, not a single monument.

The hilltop stupa west of the center, reached up a long stair lined with shrines and the resident monkeys that earned it the 'Monkey Temple' nickname. The climb pays off with the best single panorama of the whole Kathmandu valley.

Nepal's holiest Hindu site, a sprawling temple complex on the Bagmati River where open-air cremations take place on the ghats. Confronting and deeply sacred, it is the most unfiltered look at life and death you will get in the city.

A restored neoclassical garden of pavilions, fountains, and lawns walled off from the chaos of Thamel right outside its gate. The city's best spot to do nothing for an hour, and a startling pocket of calm given the street beyond the wall.

The tallest pagoda in Nepal, a five-tiered temple in Bhaktapur whose staircase is guarded by paired stone wrestlers, elephants, and lions climbing in order of strength. It rode out the 2015 quake almost untouched, a testament to its medieval engineering.