Patan

 Patan is located only a few kilometres from Kathmandu. Difficult to compare, even if the two cities resemble each other. Patan is a village, whereas Kathmandu, from its statute of capital, inordinately grew bigger

 Patan offers a diversity, a richness époustouflante in old monuments. As in Kathmandu, much concentrated around the place of Durbar, the Royal Palace on one side, on the western side is a succession of temples.

One begins the visit with the Royal Palace and its large interior court (Mul chowk), magnifciently decorated. On the southern face, the entry of a small temple is kept by two beautiful bronze statues of the river goddesses Gangâ and Yamunâ. A little further is the Durbar public garden, a splendid door leads to another court of the Palace. It is the gold door, or Sun Dhoka. Above this door, is a gilded window The  temples along the Durbar Square exibites great  architecture.

Temple of Krishna, is very typically  out of  an octagonal stone (contrary to the majority of the temples which  are in  wood),  it is equipped with "pinnacles" which stage all around the  shikara

Curious Krishna Mandir ( temple) is still a stone temple. A succession of small piled up houses, pointing out the chhattri of India, constitutes the second and third stage.  On the square, in front of the temple, is  a statue of Garuda, the vehicle of Lord Vishnu , whose   most famous incarnation  was Lord Krishna .

The temple of Vishvanath has the  staircase kept by two stone elephants.

And, finally, at the  end of Durbar public garden,  is the  beautiful temple of Bhimsen, easily recognizable by the roof decorated with  divinities out of gilded wood

Walking  beyond the temple of Bhimsen, one arrives at the very beautiful Gold Temple (Kwa bahal), which l retains the extraordinary profusion of the statues. It is also a small Buddhist monastery

Beyond this is  the temple of Kumbeshvar, a  rare temple equipped with five stages of decreasing size, which forms a harmonious and elegant unit. The court around the temple is strewn with various statues.

In the southern district of the city, is the sober curved pyramidal structure of the Temple of Mahabuddha. The shikara  is decorated, says a legend , of thousand effigies of Buddha. Although built in the 16 th century, it is  being rebuilt after the seism of 1934.

The visit of this temple gives the opportunity to see in the same district, of the stores and the craftsmen working on bronze according to the traditional technique of loose wax. The statues of  Buddha and thousand other divinities are of a quality and a completion respecting the old iconographic prescritions perfectly.

The Buddhist monastery of Rudra Varna Mahavira (Uku Bahal), very near to the temple of Mahabuddha. The interior court, much vaster than that of the Gold temple, is quite as enthralling with its bestiary of bronze statues

The temple of Rato Machhendranath, a form of Shiva has  on  the columns, one will admire bronze animals which represent the months of the Tibetian  year