Exclusive Private Full-Day Guided Tour of Old and New Delhi

Ten hours, which is what Delhi actually needs

The city has been the capital of Hindu, Sultanate, Mughal, British and independent India in turn, and the monuments of each are still standing in different parts of it. A six-hour tour picks three. Ten covers the sequence.

Old Delhi

Jama Masjid, finished in 1656 and still India's largest mosque: red sandstone and marble around a courtyard for twenty-five thousand people, with minarets you can climb for the best view of the walled city there is.

Shoulders and knees covered; robes lent at the gate. It closes to visitors during prayers.

Chandni Chowk by cycle rickshaw, laid out in the 1650s by Shah Jahan's daughter with a canal down its centre that reflected the moon. Still organised trade by trade — silver in Dariba Kalan, wedding trim in Kinari Bazaar, and Khari Baoli, the largest spice market in Asia.

Raj Ghat, the black marble platform where Gandhi was cremated in 1948, with a flame that has burned since.

New Delhi

India Gate and the drive along Rajpath past Rashtrapati Bhavan — Lutyens's imperial city of the 1920s, 340 rooms under a dome borrowed from a Buddhist stupa.

Humayun's Tomb, built in the 1560s by the emperor's widow: the first great Mughal garden tomb in India and the direct model for the Taj sixty-seven years later.

Qutub Minar, begun in 1193 — the tallest brick minaret in the world, in a complex assembled from the stone of twenty-seven dismantled temples, with the iron pillar that has stood over sixteen hundred years without rusting.

And the Lotus Temple if the day allows — nine sides, twenty-seven marble petals, silent inside. Closed Mondays.

Three options

Guide only; car, driver and guide; or the same with all entrance tickets.

Practical

Ten hours. Red Fort is closed on Mondays; your guide reorders the day around it.

Entrance fees run about ₹2,000 a head for a foreign adult where not included.