Bhaktapur Durbar Square

Bhaktapur — Bhadgaon, the City of Devotees — is the best-preserved of the valley's three royal cities; with less modern traffic and more intact fabric than Kathmandu or Patan, its brick-paved streets still feel medieval. It was the seat of the unified valley under Yaksha Malla before the c. 1482 split, and afterwards the proud capital of its own kingdom, until it fell last — in 1769 — to Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha.

Its greatest builder was King Bhupatindra Malla (r. 1696–1722). He raised the Nyatapola in 1702 — a five-storey pagoda about 33 m tall, the tallest temple in Nepal, dedicated to the tantric goddess Siddhi Lakshmi and guarded by a stairway of ascending protectors (wrestlers, elephants, lions, griffins and goddesses, each pair said to be ten times stronger than the one below); it has ridden out both the 1934 and 2015 earthquakes. He also built the celebrated 55-Window Palace around 1700, and his gilded statue kneels on a column facing it. The palace's Golden Gate (Sun Dhoka), a gilt-copper masterpiece often called the valley's finest metalwork, was commissioned by the last Malla king of Bhaktapur, Ranajit Malla, around 1754 — the same king who gave the square its great Taleju Bell (1737). Nearby Taumadhi Square holds the towering Bhairavnath Temple, and to the east Dattatreya Square centres on the Dattatreya Temple of 1427, among the valley's oldest and said to be built from the timber of a single tree.

Bhaktapur is also a living craft city: its Potters' Square is a working quarter where the Prajapati community still throws pots on hand-spun wheels, and it is famous for Juju Dhau, the creamy 'King Curd.' The entry fee for foreign visitors is higher than at the other squares and helps fund the city's conservation. Bhaktapur is at its most spectacular during Bisket Jatra, the New Year chariot festival in April. The 2015 quake toppled the Vatsala Durga and Siddhi Lakshmi temples, since rebuilt, while the Nyatapola and 55-Window Palace came through.