Two Rajasthan cities, two fortresses, and a stretch of the Thar Desert between them—that is the appeal of a Jaisalmer and Jodhpur itinerary. Jodhpur’s Mehrangarh looms over a maze of blue-painted lanes; Jaisalmer’s fort is a living one, where around 3,000 people still reside inside the walls, and the Sam sand dunes lie roughly an […]
Luxembourg is a small country with a dense calendar: a centuries-old pilgrimage where pilgrims hop through a town holding white handkerchiefs, a castle amphitheatre that has hosted international artists since 1953, a free lakeside dance festival, and one of Europe’s largest travelling funfairs. The festivals in luxembourg are spread across the country rather than concentrated […]
A city can end in an afternoon or over generations. Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii in a matter of hours; an earthquake in 363 AD helped push Petra toward abandonment; Rome besieged Carthage for nearly three years and then razed it. The best-known Ancient Cities that were lost to these three forces — volcanic eruption, earthquake […]
Say “Amaravati” in Andhra Pradesh and you could mean two very different places. One is a quiet village on the Krishna River where a great Buddhist stupa once stood and where a 125-foot Buddha now gazes across the water. The other is the state’s new capital city, which has been planned, paused, revived and — […]
Arunachal Pradesh is India’s easternmost state and one of its least-trekked, a land of monasteries, alpine lakes and valleys where tribal villages still connect by footpaths. The best treks in Arunachal Pradesh run from gentle valley walks through Apatani rice fields to a 12-day high-altitude lake circuit in the Dibang Valley. But winter changes the […]
Russia’s festival calendar is shaped by two things: an Orthodox church year and a northern climate that swings from endless summer twilight to deep winter. The country’s Festivals in Russia range from a week of pancakes and bonfires before Lent to the glowing “white nights” of St. Petersburg to a Tatar farming festival with wrestling […]
Malaysia offers major cultural and religious celebrations in almost every month of the year. Its population is a mix of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Indigenous Borneo communities, and each brings its own calendar—which means the festivals in Malaysia range from a pre-dawn chariot procession to Batu Caves to lion dances in a Penang shopping mall […]
Delhi’s weekend travellers have a particular fantasy: sleep inside a real fort, wake up to ramparts and peacocks, and be home by Sunday night. It is more achievable than most people expect, because the countryside around the capital is dotted with old Rajput and Jat strongholds that have been restored as hotels. This guide ranks, […]
Most visitors to West Bengal think of Kolkata, the Sundarbans or Darjeeling. Far fewer know that in Bankura district, a few hours from Kolkata, stands a town whose red-brown Bishnupur temples are covered in carved clay panels depicting the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the life of Krishna. Built by the Vaishnava Malla kings in the […]
Most travelers heading through Punjab have Amritsar’s Golden Temple on the itinerary and treat Jalandhar as a rail junction on the way. That undersells it. This is a city whose name traces back to a Puranic demon king, whose region was once known as Trigarta, and which served as Punjab’s provisional capital after 1947—and today […]