Lahore

The Punjabi saying settles it in one line: who has not seen Lahore has not been born. This is the garden city of the Mughals and the kitchen of the subcontinent — the Badshahi mosque holding a hundred thousand at prayer under three marble domes, the Walled City's thirteen gates funneling into lanes where every third door is a kitchen, and a fort whose palace of mirrors made an emperor feel the need to apologize for splendor.

The sensible traveller takes the Badshahi at late afternoon, when the red sandstone catches fire and the courtyard cools underfoot; climbs to a Food Street rooftop facing the mosque for the sunset that explains the saying; walks the Walled City with its own guides through havelis and hidden mosques; hears qawwali where it was raised to an art; and gives the Lahore Museum an hour for the Fasting Buddha, which repays it tenfold.

The Guide's honesty: the visa asks homework — letters, patience, and a printer —; dress covers shoulders and knees for everyone, scarves help everywhere; Friday reshapes the city's rhythm; ride by app rather than hail; and Lahori hospitality is a weather system — you will be invited, photographed and overfed, and the correct response to all three is yes.