5-Day Historical Golden Triangle Tour of India-All Inclusive (from $229.21) in Delhi

Five days, the standard route, unhurried

One arrival day and four working days, with the long drives falling between cities rather than inside them.

Day 1: Delhi

Pickup from the airport or your hotel.

Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque, and Raj Ghat, the black marble platform where Gandhi was cremated in 1948 with a flame that has burned since. A drive past the Red Fort.

Then India Gate, Parliament House and the President's House along Rajpath — Lutyens's imperial city of the 1920s, still the seat of government.

Qutub Minar, begun 1193, the tallest brick minaret in the world, with the 1,600-year-old iron pillar in its courtyard that has never rusted. And Humayun's Tomb, the 1560s Mughal garden tomb — four-part garden, double dome — that the Taj Mahal was built from the memory of sixty years later.

Day 2: Delhi to Agra

The Yamuna Expressway, about three and a half hours.

Day 3: Agra

The Taj Mahal at sunrise, when the marble runs grey to pink to white and the crowd is a fraction of the mid-morning one. Agra Fort, with the Musamman Burj where Aurangzeb imprisoned his father for eight years with the Taj in view along the river.

Day 4: Agra to Jaipur

Fatehpur Sikri on the road: Akbar's capital of 1571, abandoned after fourteen years when the water failed and standing complete because of it.

Day 5: Jaipur, then Delhi

Amber Fort early, then the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and the Hawa Mahal, and the drive back.

Three options

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

Practical

The Taj is closed on Fridays. Entrance fees are separate unless stated — roughly ₹2,600 a head for a foreign adult across the three cities.