The Abbasid capital on the Tigris
Founded in the eighth century as the round city of the Abbasid caliphs, Baghdad became a centre of scholarship and trade whose House of Wisdom translated Greek and Persian learning. The Iraq Museum holds treasures from Sumer, Akkad, Babylon and Assyria. Mutanabbi Street, named after the tenth-century poet, is lined with booksellers and the Shabandar café, and the thirteenth-century Mustansiriya Madrasa survives by the river. Try masgouf, carp split and grilled over an open fire.