Abbottabad
— — a pine-cool town where the road begins to climb.
Not only on a wall.
“A hill town in northern Pakistan at about 1,260 metres, on the old road from Islamabad toward Gilgit and the high mountains beyond. The British laid it out in 1853 around a cantonment; the pines and the cool evenings have held since. Travellers heading up the Karakoram Highway often stop here for a night — a soft landing before the road turns serious. from the studio
Abbottabad, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Abbottabad sits in the Orash valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in northern Pakistan, at an elevation of roughly 1,260 metres. It is about 120 kilometres north of Islamabad on the Karakoram Highway and serves as the headquarters of Abbottabad District. The city was founded in 1853 by Major James Abbott of the Bengal Army and laid out as a British cantonment; the original grid and many of the colonial bungalows survive in the central wards. The population today is roughly 220,000, and the town is best known as the site of the Pakistan Military Academy at nearby Kakul.
The hills around Abbottabad carry dense stands of chir pine and blue pine, and the elevation pulls summer temperatures well below those of the Punjab plain — daytime highs in June and July typically run in the high twenties Celsius, with cool nights. The town has long served Pakistani families as a summer escape from the heat of Islamabad and Lahore. Thandiani, a forested ridge at 2,750 metres reached by a 31-kilometre road northeast of town, is the standard short trip out for the view north toward Kashmir on a clear day.
The valley has four real seasons. Spring, from March into May, brings blossom in the orchards above town. The monsoon arrives in July and August and turns the pines very green; rainfall in those two months can run to 300 millimetres or more. September and October are clear and cool, the steadiest months for travel further north on the Karakoram Highway. Winter brings frost and occasional snow at town elevation, with reliable snow on the surrounding ridges from December through February. The road to Thandiani usually closes for several weeks each winter.