During my current sojourn in Nepal I also visited the Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square in Kathmandu. I wasn't even sure if I had visited this Durbar 25 years ago. My memories of Bhaktapur were much clearer, much more vivid. But I was able to trace it back at Kal Bhairav, the great statue of Shiva. I remembered that statue and then the other memories came back, too, and I wondered again, why I hadn't remembered that place straight away. I think it was the lack of vegetation on the roofs and I missed the holy bull that I had seen then. This time there were more people and even motorbikes came very close to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
There are palaces, temples, pagodas, shrines, both of hinduist and buddhist origin, to be seen. In Nepal one sees lots of emminent buddhist buildings, but the majority of the inhabitants are hinduists. Kings were crowned in this area and the Durbar Squre had been the King's residence until the early 20th century. It is now a museum, open to the public. The name comes from the statue of Hanuman, a Hindu deity in the form of a monkey, at the entrance of the Royal Palace, established by King Pratap Malla in 1672 [1].
There are quite a lot of temples and a museum to be seen: Kumari Ghar, Kasthamandap (which suffered much by the 2015 earth quake), Shiv-Parvati Temple, Jagannath Temple ... or you forget about the names and just immerge yourself in the architecture, art, temple carvings, and multicolored life of the durbar [2].
Links and Annotations:
[1] Leaflet by Kathmandu Metropolitan City, but the website https://kathmandu.gov.np/ hasn't been helpful.
[2] And you can still read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman_Dhoka
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