Delhi, Agra, Jaipur & Udaipur 7-Days Golden Triangle Tour

Four days of forts and tombs, then Udaipur — lakes, white marble and green hills. Arriving there on day five is the most satisfying gear change in a Rajasthan trip.

Delhi

Qutub Minar with the iron pillar that has not rusted in sixteen centuries, Humayun's Tomb — the 1560s Mughal garden tomb the Taj descends from — India Gate, and Old Delhi's Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk.

Agra

The Taj Mahal at sunrise, and Agra Fort with the Musamman Burj where Shah Jahan spent his last eight years as Aurangzeb's prisoner, looking at his wife's tomb along the river.

Fatehpur Sikri on the road west.

Jaipur

Amber Fort on its ridge above Maota Lake, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and the Hawa Mahal — and the bazaars, where the city's gem cutters and lac-bangle makers still work where the 1727 plan put them.

Udaipur

The drive south is about 400 km and the landscape lifts into the Aravallis as you go.

The City Palace runs most of a kilometre along Lake Pichola — the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, built up in pieces by twenty-two rulers across four hundred years. The museum inside holds the peacock mosaics and the glass rooms.

Jagdish Temple from 1651, up thirty-two steps past stone elephants. Saheliyon ki Bari, the garden of fountains and marble elephants built for a queen's forty-eight attendants.

And a boat on the lake at sunset, with the Lake Palace out in the middle and the hills going flat and dark behind — the image people come home with.

Three options

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

Practical

The Taj is closed on Fridays. October to March is the season.