Pakistan
Bahawalpur
A desert principality's Italian-style palace abandoned in a backstreet, forgotten by everyone except the pigeons.
Pigeons roost in the gilt window frames of Noor Mahal, an Italian-Baroque palace marooned in a backstreet where goats wander the forecourt and children play cricket against its marble facade. Bahawalpur was once a princely state wealthy enough to commission European architects, and the evidence stands in various states of grandeur and neglect across this Punjabi city — palaces you can walk into almost by accident.
Bahawalpur was the seat of the Abbasi nawabs, a princely dynasty that ruled an area larger than the Netherlands until accession to Pakistan in 1955. Their architectural ambitions produced Noor Mahal, an Italian-style palace designed by a British architect in 1872, and Darbar Mahal, a grander residence that remains in military use and is visible only from outside. The central library, designed in Indo-Saracenic style, sits in the old city alongside Mughal-era mosques and bazaars selling the city's signature sohan halwa — a saffron-laced brittle sweet. Bahawalpur is also the gateway to Cholistan Desert and Derawar Fort, making it a practical base for desert excursions. The old city's narrow lanes reward wandering — princely-era buildings appear without warning between shops selling dates and pottery.
Solo
Solo travellers find Bahawalpur's faded princely grandeur best explored on foot — the old city's lanes reveal forgotten palaces between date bazaars, and the sohan halwa shops provide a reason to stop at every corner.
Couple
Couples discover a city where Mughal mosques, European-commissioned palaces, and bustling bazaars sit side by side — Bahawalpur's layered history makes for wandering that reveals something different at every turn.
- The Noor Mahal palace, built 1872 in Italian neoclassical style, sits in a residential street with peeling stucco and pigeons on the roof — completely unguarded.
- The Abbasi Mosque in the Derawar Fort complex, built 1756, is a miniature replica of Lahore's Badshahi Mosque — same marble inlay, fraction of the visitors.
- Bahawalpur's central museum holds the personal collection of the last Nawab — jade vessels, jewelled weapons, and illustrated manuscripts on open shelves.
- The city sits on the edge of the Cholistan Desert, making it the base for desert safaris, camel races, and visits to Derawar Fort at sunrise.
Bahawalpur's sohan halwa — saffron-laced and crumbling, the city's edible signature.
Chole bhature from the old city's breakfast stalls.
Fresh dates from Cholistan's edge — some of Pakistan's finest, sticky and dark.
Raufarhöfn
Iceland
Monoliths of an Arctic Henge reaching for the midnight sun on a desolate tundra.
Mértola
Portugal
Whitewashed hill town where the mosque became a church but the mihrab still faces Mecca.
Walhalla
Australia
A ghost town of 20 people in a fern-choked valley, reached by narrow-gauge steam train.
Lampa
Peru
A pink-painted Andean town hiding a full-scale replica of Michelangelo's Pietà in its colonial church.
Chitral
Pakistan
Hindu Kush walls rising 7,700 metres above polo grounds where horsemen play without rules or saddles.
Cholistan Desert
Pakistan
Forty bastions of a forgotten fortress rising from featureless desert where camel nomads still roam.
Neelum Valley
Pakistan
A valley split by a ceasefire line where the river flows freely between two warring nations.
Hunza Valley
Pakistan
Apricot orchards cascading down terraces where three of Earth's mightiest mountain ranges collide.