Yesterday morning we had a couple hours free, so we drove over to a section of Kathmandu called Patan, and visited the famous Durbar Square. It's one of the most iconic areas of Nepal, as it's a huge complex of amazingly intricate and unique Hindu and Buddhist temples. Durbar means "royal palace" and many years ago was where the royal family lived- there are actually 3 "Durbar Squares" in Kathmandu, and Patan is one of them. According to Wikipedia, it's estimated to have been constructed somewhere between the years 1000 and 1500, with some sections added later, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sadly, what's also notable about the Patan Durbar Square is the damage that some of the temples suffered during the earthquake in April. A few of the most notable temples were destroyed completely. Others you can see from the photos are being bolstered up by planks. It's hard to tell from the photos which ones were destroyed- even while we were there we were having trouble getting the full picture, as all of the debris has been cleared away by now. I did a google image search and tried to compare my photos to older, pre-earthquake photos and it's tricky. Certainly in my photos you can see one platform with nothing on it- for sure that was another red, angled-type temple. Beyond that, I'm still doing the comparison and asking people here. In any case, the photos below are still pretty amazing.
Also just adjacent to Durbar Square is the Golden Temple of Buddha. It's just....gold! and bronze, and silver. Highly elaborate and compacted into a pretty small footprint in an already pretty compacted neighborhood. I took some extra pictures of crazy animal statues for Griffin. Enjoy!
BELOW- See how there is sort of a platform there with nothing on it, that is one of the destroyed temples.
BELOW - this was just outside the square and I'm not sure what it had been, but clearly something had been built on it, that was destroyed in the earthquake. We saw a number of plots like this.
Buddha's Golden Temple - all these below.
Also just adjacent to Durbar Square is the Golden Temple of Buddha. It's just....gold! and bronze, and silver. Highly elaborate and compacted into a pretty small footprint in an already pretty compacted neighborhood. I took some extra pictures of crazy animal statues for Griffin. Enjoy!
BELOW- See how there is sort of a platform there with nothing on it, that is one of the destroyed temples.
Buddha's Golden Temple - all these below.
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