Baghdad

Baghdad begins with the Tigris. The river threads through the city the way life has always threaded through it — under the Maiden's Bridge, past the date-palm gardens, through centuries of trade and poetry.

Beneath today's streets, the Abbasid capital remembers its two golden ages: the House of Wisdom that translated the world, and the round city that once led the sciences. To walk Iraq's capital is to walk the layers of an idea that changed everything.