From Delhi: Same Day Taj Mahal Trip By India's Fastest Train (from $160) in Agra

7:00 am pickup, and breakfast happens on the train

Early enough to matter, late enough to be civilised. Your driver collects you at seven, takes you to Hazrat Nizamuddin station, and you board the Gatimaan Express — India's fastest train, 160 km/h, Delhi to Agra in a hundred minutes, with a hot breakfast served at your seat.

In Agra

A private air-conditioned car and a licensed local guide meet you at Agra Cantt.

Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan began it in 1632, the year after Mumtaz Mahal died bearing their fourteenth child. Twenty thousand workers and twenty-two years; the marble came 300 km from Makrana by ox cart.

What the guide gives you is the craft rather than the romance: the calligraphy cut in progressively larger letters so it reads the same height from the ground; the pietra dura, up to sixty stones in one inlaid flower; the four minarets, tilted fractionally outward so an earthquake would take them clear of the tomb; and the optical trick at the gateway, where the building appears to shrink the closer you walk.

And Shah Jahan's own cenotaph — the only thing in the whole building placed off the central axis, added by Aurangzeb after his death.

Agra Fort. Akbar's red sandstone city of 1565 with Shah Jahan's marble palaces inside it, and the Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower on the river wall where Aurangzeb imprisoned him for the last eight years of his life, the Taj visible along the water.

Then the evening Gatimaan back into Delhi.

Two options

The private day trip with train, car and guide; or the fuller version with tickets and meals included.

Practical

The Gatimaan does not run on Fridays, which is also the day the Taj is closed — the two line up neatly.

Seats are limited and release on a fixed schedule, so book as early as you can. Carry the passport you booked with; Indian Railways checks ID against the ticket.