Nepal: Kathmandu & Pokhara Highlights

The group meets at Tribhuvan Airport and transfers to the Hyatt Regency Kathmandu — a large, comfortable property in its own garden estate with an outdoor pool and excellent dining. Emma's welcome dinner is relaxed and convivial: the group is introduced over excellent Nepali dal bhat.

The great Tibetan Buddhist stupa of Boudhanath in the early morning as the pilgrims begin their circumambulation, then the sacred Hindu temple complex of Pashupatinath and its riverside cremation ghats. Emma's briefings on Buddhist and Hindu traditions — delivered with a journalist's precision and a traveller's empathy — give the group a framework for everything they will see.

An entire day in Bhaktapur — the best-preserved medieval city in the Himalayas. The 55 Window Palace, the Peacock Window, the pottery square where potters still work the ancient pedal wheel, the weavers' district producing traditional dhaka cloth — Bhaktapur is a functioning medieval city, not a preserved relic. Emma's affection for it is catching; groups consistently rate this as the day that most surprises them.

A morning visit to Kathmandu Durbar Square — the palace complex of the Malla kings and the living goddess Kumari, whose brief daily appearance at her window remains one of the most remarkable experiences in Nepal. Then a 30-minute mountain flight to Pokhara with the Himalayan panorama visible from the aircraft. Check in to the Barahi Jungle Lodge on Phewa Lake.

Pre-dawn on Phewa Lake in a traditional wooden rowing boat — the mountain reflection appears as the mist clears and the light grows. The Annapurna range — Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Machhapuchhare, Annapurna I, II, III and IV — fills the horizon in an unbroken wall of snow and ice. Return for breakfast, then the afternoon for the World Peace Pagoda walk (gentle, 45 minutes return from the lakeside, with views of both city and mountains).

The Tashiling Tibetan settlement, the International Mountain Museum (best in the Himalayas), and a long afternoon at leisure on the lakeside — coffee at the Lakeside strip cafes, browsing the mountain gear shops (the quality Nepali pashmina here is excellent), or simply watching the reflections from the hotel garden.

An optional 5am drive to Sarangkot hilltop (1,600m) for the most celebrated sunrise viewpoint above Pokhara — the whole Annapurna range in alpenglow, the lake below. (A lie-in with lake views from the hotel terrace is equally valid.) Morning flight back to Kathmandu. Final afternoon free — last shopping, last dal bhat, last walk through Thamel.

Emma accompanies the group to the airport for final farewells and international departures.