From Delhi: Taj Mahal Private Day Tour with Guide & 5* Lunch in Agra

The whole day handled, in one car

A private chauffeur from Delhi, a licensed guide in Agra, and the same vehicle all day so you are never waiting for anything. Twelve hours door to door, which is the honest length of a Taj day from Delhi however it is packaged.

The drive

The Yamuna Expressway is a six-lane toll road opened in 2012 and it is the reason this trip is possible in a day at all — before it, Delhi to Agra was five hours of trunk road through towns.

Three to three and a half hours now, with a break.

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 by ox cart and elephant up a purpose-built ramp.

Your guide covers the calligraphy cut in progressively larger letters so that from the ground every line appears the same height; the pietra dura inlay, with as many as sixty pieces of cornelian, jasper, lapis and jade in a single flower; the four minarets, tilted fractionally outward so an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb; and the illusion at the Darwaza-i-Rauza gateway, where the Taj seems to shrink the closer you walk.

And the one deliberate break in the symmetry: Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, placed off the central 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 imprisoned him for the last eight years of his life, the Taj visible along the water.

Three options

Car, driver and guide; the same with monument fees; or with monument fees and breakfast.

Practical

Twelve hours door to door. The Taj is closed on Fridays.

Tell us about vegetarian, Jain or no-chilli requirements when you book.