Phetchaburi, Thailand

The provincial capital of PHETCHABURI has been settled ever since the eleventh century, when the Khmers ruled the region, but only really got going six hundred years later, when it gained a reputation as a cultural centre; it subsequently became a favourite country retreat of King Rama IV, who had a hilltop palace built here in the 1850s, at Khao Wang ("Palace Hill"). Twenty-first-century downtown Phetchaburi has lost relatively little of the ambience that so attracted Rama IV: the central riverside area is hemmed in by countless historic temples in varying states of disrepair, and wooden shophouses still line the river bank.