Agra is a one-monument city in most people’s minds, and it is worth staying long enough to prove that wrong. Two UNESCO sites sit within three kilometres of each other, a third — Fatehpur Sikri — is forty minutes down the road towards Jaipur, and the quietest of them all is on the far bank of the river.
The Taj opens at sunrise, and that is when to see it. The marble changes colour for about twenty minutes and the crowds arrive an hour later. It is closed on Fridays, which catches out more visitors than anything else in North India.
October to March for the weather. April to June is genuinely hard going: if you come then, do everything outdoors before ten in the morning.
Finished in 1653, built by Shah Jahan for Mumtaz Mahal. What photographs never convey is the inlay: flowers cut from carnelian, jasper and lapis and set flush into the marble, thousands of them, visible only up close. Go at opening. Closed on Fridays.
Red sandstone, two and a half kilometres of walls, and the palace where Shah Jahan spent his last eight years under his son’s guard, with a view downriver to the tomb he had built. Most visitors give it an hour. It is worth two.
Agra is part of our multi-day private tours of Rajasthan and North India. You travel in your own car with an English-speaking driver who knows the roads, the opening times and where to stop — no group, no fixed schedule.
Other destinations: Jaipur · Delhi · Jaisalmer · Jodhpur · Udaipur · Pushkar
