Peshawar

Peshawar has been lived in continuously for well over two thousand years and sits where the Khyber Pass empties onto the plain, which is why every army heading for India came through it. The walled city is still a warren of narrow bazaars, and Qissa Khwani, the street of storytellers, is where the caravan traffic used to stop. The Peshawar Museum holds the largest collection of Gandharan sculpture anywhere. Mahabat Khan Mosque of 1630 is hidden inside the coppersmiths' bazaar and the Sethi houses nearby carry carved wooden facades over cellars cut for the heat. Torkham and the Afghan border are fifty kilometres west.