Agra: Guided Tour of Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri

Three UNESCO sites, starting at seven in the morning

Pickup at 07:00 from your hotel or Agra Cantt station, at the Taj by half past — which is the right hour, before the coaches and while the light is still low.

07:30 — Taj Mahal

Shah Jahan built it from 1632 as a memorial to Mumtaz Mahal, who died bearing their fourteenth child. Twenty-two years, twenty thousand workers, marble carted 300 km from Makrana.

Your guide covers the parts that make it: the calligraphy cut in progressively larger letters so it reads uniformly from the ground; the pietra dura, up to sixty stones in one inlaid flower; the four minarets, tilted fractionally outward so an earthquake would take them clear of the tomb; and the single asymmetry in a perfectly mirrored building — Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, added off-axis by Aurangzeb.

Agra Fort

Akbar's red sandstone city of 1565 with Shah Jahan's marble palaces inside: the Diwan-i-Am, the Khas Mahal, the Sheesh Mahal. And the Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower where Aurangzeb imprisoned his father for the last eight years of his life, with the Taj in view along the river.

Fatehpur Sikri

Forty kilometres west, and the site most day trips drop when they run late.

Akbar built this capital in 1571 and abandoned it fourteen years later when the water supply failed — which is exactly why it stands complete. Nobody lived there long enough to change it.

The Buland Darwaza, 54 metres of victory gate with an inscription quoting Jesus carved on a Mughal mosque. The Panch Mahal, five open storeys stepping back as they rise, no two columns alike. The Diwan-i-Khas, with a single carved central pillar and four bridges to the corners, where Akbar sat while representatives of different faiths argued around him. And the marble dargah of Salim Chishti, whose jali screens are still hung with threads tied by people asking for children.

Four options

Guide only from Agra; car and guide from Agra; car and guide from Delhi; or an all-inclusive Agra tour.

The Taj is closed on Fridays — the other two sites are open.