From Delhi: 4-Day Golden Triangle Tour –Delhi, Agra & Jaipur

Four days, five price points

The itinerary is the same in every option; what changes is how much of it we arrange. There is even a guide-only rate — a licensed guide in each city while you handle your own transport and rooms — which is unusual and useful if you are travelling by train between the three.

Day 1: Delhi

India Gate and the drive past Rashtrapati Bhavan, 340 rooms under a dome Lutyens borrowed from a Buddhist stupa.

Qutub Minar, begun in 1193 — the tallest brick minaret in the world, standing in a courtyard built from the stone of dismantled temples, with the iron pillar that has not rusted in sixteen centuries.

Humayun's Tomb, the 1560s Mughal garden tomb: four-part garden, double dome, and the direct ancestor of the Taj sixty years later. Seeing it first changes how the Taj reads.

Old Delhi if the timing allows — Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk from a rickshaw.

Day 2: Agra

The Taj Mahal with a licensed guide: the calligraphy cut in increasing sizes so it reads evenly from the ground, the pietra dura flowers of dozens of inlaid stones, the minarets tilted outward so an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb, and the single asymmetry in the building.

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

Day 3: Jaipur via Fatehpur Sikri

Akbar's capital of 1571, abandoned fourteen years later when the water gave out and preserved because of it.

Day 4: Jaipur, then Delhi

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

Five options

Guides only; car, driver and guides; or those with three, four or five-star hotels.

The Taj is closed on Fridays. Entrance fees are separate on every option — roughly ₹2,600 a head for a foreign adult.