From Delhi: Private Taj Mahal and Agra Tour by Express Train

8:10 out, and the driver walks you to the coach

The small detail that makes this one work: your driver takes you into Nizamuddin station and finds your coach and seat with you. Indian railway stations are not intuitive, the platform displays are terse, and a reserved coach in a fourteen-coach train is not where you expect it to be.

The morning

Pickup from your hotel, transfer to the station, departure at 8:10, breakfast on the train, and Agra Cantt at 9:50.

Your guide is waiting in front of the station.

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; the marble came 300 km from Makrana in Rajasthan by ox cart.

The parts worth having pointed out: the calligraphy cut in progressively larger letters so it appears the same height from the ground; the pietra dura inlay, where a single flower can carry sixty separate stones; the four minarets, tilted fractionally outward so that an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb; the optical trick at the Darwaza-i-Rauza gateway, where the Taj looks smaller the closer you get.

And Shah Jahan's own cenotaph — the only thing in the entire building placed off the central axis, added beside his wife's by Aurangzeb.

Agra Fort

A walled city of red sandstone begun by Akbar in 1565, with his grandson's marble palaces inside: the Diwan-i-Am, the Khas Mahal, the Sheesh Mahal, and the Musamman Burj where that grandson spent his last eight years as a prisoner of his own son, the Taj in view along the river.

Four options

Car and guide within Agra; second class without meals or tickets; second class all-inclusive; or first class all-inclusive.

Practical

The train does not run on Fridays, which is also when the Taj is closed.

Seats are limited. Carry the passport you booked with — Indian Railways checks ID against the ticket.