24. Visit to Baburs' Garden

One of the first places I decided to visit is Bagh-e-Babur or Babur's Garden, which had just been recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in November.   

Here is a brief description of the Garden from UNESCO's website:

"Bagh-e Babur is located on the slopes of Kuh-e Sher Darwaza, southwest of the old city of Kabul. From the top terrace, the visitor has a magnificent vista over the garden and its perimeter wall, across the Kabul River towards the snow covered mountains.  Created by the founder of the Mughal dynasty, Ziihir ad-Din Muhammad Babur (1483-1530), after his conquest of Kabul in 1504, Bagh-e Babur is one of the earliest surviving Mughal gardens. The king was a passionate gardener and personally designed and supervised at least 10 gardens in his capital Kabul. For political reasons, Babur had to move east and conquered northern India in 1526; he died in Agra in 1530. Throughout his years in the flat, dusty plains of India he missed his home country and thus wished to be buried in Kabul. His body was transferred to Bagh-e Babur by his widow around 1544. For nearly 150 years, his heirs, especially Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) and Shah Jahan (r. 1627-1658), paid their respects to his burial place and sponsored ambitious building programs to preserve and beautify the garden according to contemporary taste. However, beside the spiritual aspect there was also a political dimension through the representation of imperial presence.  The original layout and essential architectural elements mirror the idealized form of the chahar bagh plan and are testimony to the spread of Persian and Timurid spiritual and aesthetic concepts towards east around 1500. It is thus the latest surviving pre-Mughal garden designed in the original Persianmmurid tradition east of Iran. Throughout its existence, Bagh-e Babur maintained the main conceptual features of this type of garden, such as the geometric layout with the typical vista, the perimeter wall, terraces, a central axis with water channels and basins, trees, flowers, and, originally, a pavilion." 

For me Bagh-e-Babur has always been a place I can sneak away to escape from the chaos of Kabul.  Its peaceful and quiet.  When I walk on the grounds and among the structures, I am calmed by the fact that people walked these same paths hundreds of years ago. Its always been a grounding experience for me and this time I got to experience it with my very good friends, Khwaga and Shafiq on this wonderful Friday afternoon.