From Delhi: Taj mahal & Agra Fort Tour With Metro Experience

A day trip with one deliberately ordinary thing in it

The metro ride is the difference here. Delhi's system carries several million people a day, it is clean, cheap and air-conditioned, and riding one stretch of it with a guide tells you more about how the city actually works than any monument does.

The rest of the day is the Agra classic, by private car.

The metro

A short section before or after the Agra leg, depending on timing. You tap in with a token or a card, ride a line that was built in the 2000s and runs on time, and see the crowd — students, office workers, women in the reserved coach at the front, vendors on the platform.

It costs a few rupees and it is the most normal thing you will do on a tour of India.

Then Agra

Early pickup from your hotel in Delhi, Noida or Gurgaon, then the Yamuna Expressway — three and a half hours in a private air-conditioned car.

Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan began it in 1632 for Mumtaz Mahal. Your guide will show you the calligraphy sized larger as it rises so it reads evenly from the ground, the pietra dura flowers of dozens of inlaid stones, the minarets tilted outward so an earthquake would take them clear of the tomb, and the one deliberate break in the symmetry.

Agra Fort. Akbar's red sandstone city of 1565 with Shah Jahan's marble inside it, and the Musamman Burj where he spent his last eight years as Aurangzeb's prisoner looking at the Taj along the river.

Three options

Private car and guide; the same with monument tickets; or the full version with tickets and a five-star meal.

Practical

About eight hours of touring plus the road at each end.

The Taj is closed on Fridays. On the metro, keep your bag in front of you and expect a security check at every station — it is routine and quick.