Shigar Valley Tour — apricot blossom beneath the Karakoram

Serena Shigar Fort is the centrepiece of the valley — a restored 17th-century Raja's residence with only 20 rooms, set inside walled apricot orchards. Restoration was led by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture over a decade and finished in 2005; it is now one of the few genuine heritage hotels in northern Pakistan.

Rooms vary from standard heritage doubles in the restored outbuildings to the Raja's Suite in the main fort (the room that has hosted three sitting Pakistani prime ministers and one British royal). Dining is in the courtyard for fair-weather evenings and in the wood-panelled hall otherwise.

Leave Skardu at 9am, drive 90 minutes north via the Shigar suspension bridge over the Indus, arrive at Shigar Fort by 10:45am for a guided tour of the restored palace and the Khanqah-e-Mualla mosque next door (1664 AD — one of the oldest wood-carved Sufi mosques in central Asia, and frequently empty of tourists).

Lunch at the fort or at a local Balti home through our village-stay programme, walk the apricot orchards in the afternoon (or, in season, pick fresh apricots straight from the tree), brief stop at the Cold Desert at Sarfaranga on the return for sunset, back in Skardu by 7pm.

Two seasons stand out. Late April to mid-May is the apricot blossom window — the entire valley turns pink-white, and the photographs people come for were almost certainly taken in those four weeks. Late July to early August is the apricot harvest, when the trees are dripping with fruit and the villages dry apricots on every flat roof.

Summer (June-September) is warmest and easiest for first-time travellers. October brings autumn colour as the poplars turn gold. Winter (December-February) is quiet, beautiful in snow, and the Fort hotel typically closes November-March.