Baghdad rewards travellers who skip the taxi and walk. Most of its monuments have no ticket booth, its souqs have run since the Abbasid caliphs, and a full meal on Karrada Inner Street costs less than a coffee in Amman.
Sculptor Ismail Fattah's split turquoise dome, 40m high on a raised plaza above a reflecting pool and an underground museum. Entry to the grounds costs nothing; carry your passport for the checkpoint at the gate.
The gold-domed shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim, ringed by a bazaar of tea stalls and sweet shops. Non-Muslims are often admitted when accompanied; the souq alleys around it cost nothing and pour tea for 500 IQD a glass.
The 1233 Abbasid university on the Tigris east bank, among the oldest surviving anywhere: a brick muqarnas portal, the ruined water-clock niche and a courtyard empty enough to hear pigeons. Tickets sold at the wooden door.
The last standing gate of Baghdad's medieval city wall, a 1221 brick drum sitting in the remains of its own moat. No ticket office, no crowd, and usually only a caretaker sweeping the vaulted entrance chamber.
Baghdad's oldest wholesale bazaar, trading since Abbasid times: alleys of cardamom, sumac, loomi, tea and dates running off Al-Rasheed Street. Loose Iranian dates go for roughly 2,000 IQD a kilo and haggling is assumed.
A dwindling row of workshops behind Shorja where trays, dallah pots and lamps are still beaten by hand. The hammering is the attraction; a small hand-hammered coffee pot starts around 15,000 IQD, and looking is free.
Baghdad's busiest shopping artery, lined with juice bars, shawarma counters and bakeries. Chicken shawarma with pickles runs 3,000-4,000 IQD, pomegranate juice 2,000, and hot samoon bread 250 IQD a loaf from the ovens.
Jawad Saleem's 1961 bronze frieze spans the square in fourteen cast panels read right to left like Arabic. After dark the carts beneath sell kubba, lentil soup and tea for a couple of thousand dinars a plate.
A 200-hectare municipal park on the west bank with a boating lake, a small zoo and families picnicking under eucalyptus from early morning. Park entry is nominal, the zoo slightly more, pedalos about 5,000 IQD per half hour.
A folk museum on Al-Rasheed Street staging vanished Baghdadi trades with life-size figures: the storyteller, the hammam, the Qur'an school, the coffee roaster, all inside a restored Ottoman courtyard house. Around 1,000 IQD.
Wooden balam boats leave the embankment steps for half-hour runs past palm groves, the bridges and the old palace walls. Pricing is per boat rather than per head, so gather a group and the cost drops to pocket change.
The 19th-century barracks square on the riverfront, shaded by old trees under a brick clock tower, with the Tigris on one side and Abbasid brickwork on the other. Entry costs nothing and it stays open until dusk.