Delhi: 8-Day Varanasi, Ayodhya, and Lucknow Tour

The other north India

No forts of Rajasthan and no Taj on this route. It runs east into Uttar Pradesh instead: the oldest living city in India, the most contested temple town in the country, and the last great courtly city of the Mughal successor states.

Varanasi

Fly in from Delhi. The city claims three thousand years of continuous habitation and looks it.

A dawn boat along the ghats is the central experience — the whole waterfront turns to face the sunrise while thousands bathe, wash and pray on the steps. In the evening, the Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh, performed with tiered lamps and bells by priests moving in unison.

The cremation ghats at Manikarnika and Harishchandra burn without interruption, because Hindus hold that dying here ends the cycle of rebirth. No photography there — that is absolute.

Sarnath, eleven kilometres out, is where the Buddha gave his first sermon after enlightenment. The Dhamek Stupa and the museum with the Ashokan lion capital — the original of India's national emblem — are both here.

Ayodhya

Held by Hindus to be the birthplace of Rama. The Ram Mandir, consecrated in January 2024 on the most disputed site in modern Indian history, is now among the most visited places in the country.

Also here: Hanuman Garhi, up seventy-six steps and busier than anywhere else in town, and the ghats along the Sarayu river where the evening aarti is smaller and gentler than Varanasi's.

Security at the Ram Mandir is extremely strict — no phones, no bags, no electronics. Expect queues.

Lucknow

The capital of Awadh, and a completely different register: courtly, unhurried, and famous for manners.

The Bara Imambara with its Bhul Bhulaiya, a labyrinth of 489 identical doorways in the walls above the hall — you need the guide, genuinely. The Chota Imambara, the Rumi Darwaza, and the ruined Residency, still scarred from the 1857 siege.

And the food: galouti kebab, invented for a toothless nawab, and Awadhi biryani.

Practical

Flights or trains between cities, private car within them, guides throughout.