From Delhi & Agra: Private Taj Mahal & Fort Day Tour by Car

Five options, and the point is the pickup city

Two start in Agra, three in Delhi. That is the useful thing here: travellers doing the Golden Triangle by train often arrive in Agra under their own steam and only need the car, the guide and the tickets for a few hours, while others want the whole day handled from a Delhi hotel.

Read which you are booking.

Taj Mahal

Shah Jahan began it in 1632, the year after Mumtaz Mahal died bearing their fourteenth child. Twenty thousand workers, twenty-two years, and white marble hauled 400 km from Makrana in Rajasthan — a stone chosen for its calcite purity, which is why it is translucent to about a centimetre and appears to change colour through the day rather than simply catch light.

Your guide covers the calligraphy cut in progressively larger letters so it reads the same height from the ground; the pietra dura inlay, up to sixty separate stones in a single flower; the four minarets, tilted fractionally outward so that an earthquake would drop them away from the tomb; and the one deliberate asymmetry — Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, placed off the central axis by Aurangzeb after his death.

Agra Fort

Akbar's walled city of 1565 in red sandstone, two and a half kilometres around, with Shah Jahan's marble palaces inside: the Diwan-i-Am, the Khas Mahal and the Sheesh Mahal.

And the Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower on the river wall where Aurangzeb imprisoned his father for the last eight years of his life, the Taj visible along the water. He died in that room and was carried across the river to be buried beside his wife.

Five options

From Agra with car and guide; from Delhi with car and guide; from Agra with tickets; from Delhi with tickets; or from Delhi with car, guide, tickets and more.

Practical

Eight hours plus whatever road your option involves. The Taj is closed on Fridays.