Kashmir Valley

The summer capital of Kashmir, built around a lake, a river and an old city of wooden balconies, copper-beaters and saffron-scented kitchens.

Eighteen square kilometres of waterways, floating gardens and carved houseboats that have defined the image of Kashmir for a hundred and fifty years.

A 2,650-metre bowl below Apharwat peak with the world's second-highest operating gondola, India's best lift-served skiing and a summer meadow that gave the place its name.

A glacial valley at 2,730 metres on the road to Ladakh, surrounded by snow peaks, braided rivers and the walk-in Thajiwas glacier.

The Mughal emperors built their idea of paradise into the hillside above Dal Lake — twelve terraces, running water and chinar avenues still standing four hundred years on.

Asia's largest tulip garden opens for roughly twenty-five days each spring, with seventy varieties terraced between the Zabarwan hills and Dal Lake.

Kashmir's most relaxed hill town, where the Lidder river runs through pine forest at 2,130 metres, with Aru, Betaab and Chandanwari branching off above it.

An hour from Srinagar, a wide alpine meadow cut by a stream that froths white over the rocks — hence the name, the valley of milk.

A manicured river meadow seven kilometres from Pahalgam, walled by pine ridges and named after the 1983 film shot there.

A remote Dard-Shin valley on the Kishanganga river, ringed by the Habba Khatoon peak, open only when the Razdan Pass is clear of snow.

A meadow village twelve kilometres above Pahalgam, base camp for the Kolahoi glacier and the Tarsar–Marsar lakes, and the prettiest overnight stop in south Kashmir.

A deeper, cleaner, far calmer basin ringed by willows and poplars — where travellers go when they want the lake without the crowd.

At 2,895 metres, the highest point reachable by road above Pahalgam — where snow bridges survive into summer and the Amarnath yatra begins.

A small, accessible glacier three kilometres above Sonmarg, reachable on foot or by pony, where snow survives through the summer.

A quiet pine-fringed meadow south-west of Srinagar, backed by the Pir Panjal and known for horse rides, the Doodh Ganga stream and the Nilnag lake walk.

For two weeks each autumn the karewa plateaus south of Srinagar turn purple with Crocus sativus — the only commercial saffron fields in India.

One of Hinduism's most revered shrines — a Himalayan cave where a stalagmite of ice forms each summer, reached by a demanding pilgrimage from Pahalgam or Baltal.

Kashmir's largest freshwater spring, fanning out through a terraced botanical garden and rose garden in the foothills south of Anantnag.

An octagonal Mughal spring enclosed by Jahangir in 1620, considered the source of the Jhelum and one of the most elegant small monuments in Kashmir.

A high pass on the Anantnag–Kishtwar road where snow banks survive into July and the view spans both the Kashmir valley and the Chenab basin.

141 square kilometres of oak, pine and alpine meadow twenty kilometres from Srinagar — and the only place on earth where the critically endangered hangul survives.

A 17th-century Mughal garden laid out by Nur Jahan around a powerful spring, with cascades, chinar avenues and terraced beds.

A vast, bowl-shaped alpine grassland in Kupwara, surrounded by conifer ridges and still largely untouched by tourism.

A vast freshwater lake north of Srinagar, fed by the Jhelum, ringed by fishing villages and critical for the valley's birdlife and flood control.

A gentle, fertile valley in Kupwara filled with rice terraces, walnut and apple orchards, caves and springs — and virtually no tourists.

The deepest lake in the valley, famous for its summer lotus beds, a Mughal garden on its shore and a complete absence of crowds.

A quiet conifer valley at 2,438 metres on the Bringhi river, used as a trout fishing base and the approach road to Sinthan Top.

A powerful 25-metre waterfall on the Veshaw river in Kulgam, set in pine forest and used as the trailhead for the Kousar Nag lake trek.