A guide to the valley's festival calendar for someone who has just moved here

The lunar calendar sets the dates, so festivals shift against the Gregorian year. Dashain falls in autumn, Tihar a few weeks later, Holi in early spring and the valley's own jatras through the monsoon.

Religious practice here is layered: Hindu and Buddhist traditions share shrines and dates in ways that surveys of belief struggle to classify. [1]

Where to stand

The great processions move through the old city squares, which is why those squares are protected and why their restoration after 2015 mattered beyond tourism. [2]