All direct flights to Islamabad from the UK & Ireland

Mark Says

The capital of Pakistan is actually one of the country's newest cities, having only been completed in 1961. After a slow start (the government didn't fully move in until the mid-1980s), Islamabad has had to expand to meet the needs of a growing population, its greener areas - such as the Shakar Parian and Margalla Hills at the city's flanks - coming under the threat of yet more concrete and construction projects. The city is divided into eight separate zones, each given a letter-number reference (A1, B4, E7 and so on up to the letter H). Negotiating Islamabad can sometimes seem like finding one's way around a giant multi-storey car park. One of Islamabad's most striking buildings is the huge modernist Shah Faisal Mosque, and just west of the city lies Taxila, a fabled centre of pilgrimage (it dates back to 500BC) that serves as a Buddhist and Sikh shrine. But Islamabad has also become a major education and business centre over the last few decades. The city is home to the youthful students of Quaid-e-Azam University, the towering opulence of the Saudi-Pak Tower, and the set-to-be-magnificent Centaurus complex, still under construction at the time of writing.