Bewitching  Bhutantours

The third-highest capital in the world, Thimphu manages to embrace the modern while still protecting its heritage, with buildings in traditional Bhutanese style. Home to the fortress monastery of Tashichho Dzong with its temples and shrines, it’s still the seat of royal government today, while the Memorial Chorten stupa is a place of daily worship and ritual for locals. Discover Bhutanese traditions at the city’s Textile Museum, as well as visiting the nearby Zilukha Nunnery and 50m golden Buddha Dordenma statue, one of the largest in the world which conceals 125,000 smaller Buddhas inside its body.

One of the biggest highlights of all Bhutan tours, it’s hard to believe the 17th Tiger’s Nest Monastery is real, clinging to a cliff edge high up a mountain above the Paro Valley. The site got its name thanks to the legend that the ‘Second Buddha’ arrived here on a flying tiger to bring Buddhism to Bhutan. Today, there are hikes to enjoy the views across the valley and up to the monastery’s red, gold and white pagoda, while you can visit several temples at the site itself, and the cave where the Second Buddha is said to have meditated.

The historic town of Paro is one of the best places to learn about Bhutanese culture, home to the National Museum of Bhutan with exhibits showcasing Bhutanese art over the past 1,500 years. The museum building was once a watchtower, part of the 15th century Rinpung Dzong fortress, said to be one of the best examples of Bhutanese traditional architecture, with its carved wooden details and layered sloping roofs overlooking the Himalayan valley and river. Called the gateway to Bhutan, Paro is one of the few places in the country where you can safely land a plane!

Bhutan’s former capital Punakha is home to the country’s second-oldest and second-largest fortified monastery, Punakha Dzong. Also known as the Palace of Great Happiness, it’s also considered the most beautiful, with beautiful wall paintings and lush gardens with flowering jacaranda trees. The nearby temple of Chimi Lhakhang overlooks the Puna Tsang Chu River as well as the fertile countryside with rice paddies and rich fields where fruit and vegetables are grown – the temple itself is dedicated to fertility too, and known as the temple of the Divine Madman, one of Bhutan’s most unusual and favourite saints.

This collection of four lovely valleys is lined with picture postcard villages under the tree-lined slopes, and some of Bhutan’s oldest monasteries. It’s a place to discover stories and legends, local honey, cheese, apples and wool products, as well as Bhutan’s only brewery, which produces a beer named after the red pandas living in the forests nearby – shy and retiring, you’re more likely to see the beer than the animals though. The area is also the birthplace of Pema Lingpa, the saint to whom the Bhutanese royal family trace their line directly.