From Delhi : Agra Overnight Tour with Fatehpur Sikri

Two days, three UNESCO sites, one night in Agra

The reason to take the overnight rather than the day trip: you get the Taj at sunrise, and Fatehpur Sikri gets a morning instead of the forty minutes a rushed itinerary leaves it.

Day 1: Delhi to Agra

Morning pickup from your hotel, airport or preferred location in Delhi, then the Yamuna Expressway — a modern six-lane road, three to four hours.

Agra Fort on arrival with your guide. Akbar built it from 1565 in red sandstone — two and a half kilometres of wall, a double moat, and an entrance gate deliberately angled so elephants could not charge it straight.

Inside, Shah Jahan's marble replacements: the Diwan-i-Am where petitions were heard, the Khas Mahal, the Sheesh Mahal bath house set with mirror fragments. And the Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower where Aurangzeb imprisoned his own father for the last eight years of his life, with the Taj visible along the river.

Hotel in Agra.

Day 2: the Taj, then Fatehpur Sikri

The Taj Mahal as the gates open, half an hour before sunrise.

Then Fatehpur Sikri, 40 km west. Akbar built this capital in 1571 and abandoned it fourteen years later when the water supply failed — which is exactly why it survives complete: nobody lived there long enough to alter it.

The Buland Darwaza is 54 metres of victory gate with an inscription quoting Jesus carved on a Mughal mosque. The Panch Mahal steps back through five open storeys, none of its columns alike. The Diwan-i-Khas has a single carved central pillar with 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.

Back to Delhi in the evening.

Two options

Without accommodation, or with a three-star hotel included.

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