From Delhi: Luxury Same Day Taj Mahal Tour by SUV Car in Agra

An SUV, which matters on a fourteen-hour day

The standard Delhi day trip runs in a sedan. For three or more people, or anyone over about six foot, an SUV is the difference between a long day and an uncomfortable one — more legroom, higher seating, and luggage space that does not force bags onto laps.

Vehicles are matched to group size, all air-conditioned, with a professional driver.

The drive

Early pickup from your hotel in Delhi, then the Yamuna Expressway — a modern six-lane road, three to three and a half hours with a break.

Taj Mahal

A licensed guide meets you in Agra.

Shah Jahan began it in 1632, the year after Mumtaz Mahal died bearing their fourteenth child. Twenty thousand workers, twenty-two years, marble hauled 300 km from Makrana in Rajasthan.

The things worth having pointed out: the calligraphy on the great arch, cut in increasing sizes so it reads the same height from the ground; the pietra dura inlay, where one flower can hold sixty separate stones; the four minarets, leaning fractionally outward so an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb; and the illusion at the gateway, where the building seems to shrink as you approach.

And the one deliberate break in the symmetry — Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, set off-axis beside his wife's by Aurangzeb.

Agra Fort

Akbar's red sandstone city of 1565 with Shah Jahan's marble palaces inside, and the Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower where Aurangzeb held his father prisoner for eight years with the Taj visible along the river.

Three options

A local Agra day trip in an SUV; the Delhi day trip by SUV; or the Delhi day trip with a guide included.

Practical

The Taj is closed on Fridays.

Entrance fees are paid on the day unless your option covers them — ₹1,300 a head at the Taj for a foreign adult including the mausoleum, ₹650 at the fort.