Delhi: 4-Day Golden Triangle Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur Tour

Four days, and the arrival day counts

The shape that works for most first trips: land, get a half day of Delhi, then a city a day.

Delhi

Qutub Minar, 73 metres of fluted red sandstone begun in 1193 by the first sultan of Delhi. In its courtyard the iron pillar — 4th century, wrought iron, and still barely rusted after sixteen hundred years in the open air, which metallurgists continue to write papers about.

Humayun's Tomb, commissioned in 1565 by Bega Begum and designed by a Persian architect: the first great Mughal garden tomb in India, with the four-part charbagh and double dome that the Taj repeated at greater scale.

India Gate and the Lutyens axis, and Old Delhi if the day allows.

Agra

The Taj Mahal at sunrise — the marble moves from grey through pink to white and the crowd is a fifth of what it becomes by ten.

Your guide covers the calligraphy cut in increasing sizes so it reads uniformly from the ground; the pietra dura inlay, up to sixty stones in one flower; the four minarets, tilted outward so an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb; and the single asymmetry — Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, added off-axis by Aurangzeb.

Agra Fort, and the Musamman Burj where he died a prisoner of his own son.

Jaipur, via Fatehpur Sikri

Akbar's capital of 1571, abandoned when the water failed. Then Amber Fort above Maota Lake with the Sheesh Mahal, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and the Hawa Mahal.

Three options

Car, driver and guide; or with three-star or five-star hotels and breakfast.

Practical

The Taj is closed on Fridays, which sets the ordering.

Entrance fees are separate unless stated — roughly ₹2,600 a head for a foreign adult.