From Delhi: Taj Mahal & Agra Tour by Gatimaan Express Train (from $302.13)

The comfortable version of the Agra trip

Train rather than expressway, five-star rather than a hurried lunch stop, and every entrance ticket handled. If the point of the trip is to see the Taj without spending the day being moved around, this is the option that removes the friction.

The train

The Gatimaan Express runs Delhi to Agra at 160 km/h — a hundred minutes, with catering served at the seat. It is India's fastest train and it does not run on Fridays, which is also the day the Taj Mahal is closed.

In Agra

A private air-conditioned car and a licensed guide for the whole day.

Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan began it in 1632, the year after Mumtaz Mahal died giving birth to their fourteenth child. Twenty thousand workers and twenty-two years, with white marble hauled 300 km from Makrana in Rajasthan.

The things worth having pointed out: the calligraphy on the great arch, cut in progressively larger letters so that it reads the same height from the ground; the pietra dura inlay, some flowers holding sixty separate stones; the four minarets, leaning fractionally outward so that an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb; and the one deliberate break in the symmetry — Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, placed off-axis beside his wife's by Aurangzeb.

Agra Fort. Akbar's red sandstone city of 1565, rebuilt inside in marble by Shah Jahan: the Diwan-i-Am, the Khas Mahal, the Sheesh Mahal bath house, and the Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower on the river wall where Aurangzeb held his father prisoner for the last eight years of his life, with the Taj in view along the water.

Three options

Second-class train with car, guide, tickets and a five-star hotel; the full premium version; or a car-and-guide day for travellers already in Agra.

Practical

Train seats are limited and released on a fixed schedule; book well ahead. Carry the passport you booked with — Indian Railways checks ID against the ticket.