The oldest known city

Varanasi,Banaras or Kashi is the holiest city in the world, situated on the banks of the Ganges river with 84 ghats, used for bathing and cremation both at the same place.

If you are rational, logical, and have little patience with things complex, sublime, and chaotic, Varanasi will not appeal. It’s crumbling, poetic, and eccentric. Goats wearing sweaters, old men taking dips, boys flying kites, and burning bodies are everyday sights. As the holiest of seven sacred cities for Hindus and Jains, it’s a pilgrim-drawing spiritual capital of India. (It’s also an important stop for Buddhists, because the Buddha is said to have given his first sermon in nearby Sarnath.) It’s one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities. It has lived more than a hundred cultures, many of which it hasn’t fully let go. It’s absorbed its various conquests, myths, religions and philosophies into one urban space.