5 Days in India: Delhi, Agra and Jaipur by Private Car

Begin in Shahjahanabad, the walled city that Shah Jahan founded in the 1640s when he moved the Mughal court up from Agra.

• The Jama Masjid sits at its centre.
• From the southern minaret you can read the whole street plan of Chandni Chowk laid out below you, which makes the walk that follows far easier to understand.
• Then go down into the lanes.
• Khari Baoli is the spice market, Dariba Kalan was the silver street, and Paranthe Wali Gali is exactly what the name promises.
• Arrive hungry.
• Old Delhi street food is a cuisine of its own, and a guide earns their place here by knowing which counters cook in front of you and turn over quickly.
• Aim to start around ten, once the shops have properly opened and before the afternoon crowd arrives.
• In the afternoon, choose between the Red Fort and Humayun's Tomb.
• If you only have energy for one, take the tomb.
• It was finished in 1572 and uses the same four-part garden and raised platform that the Taj Mahal would use eighty years later.
• Seen today, it turns the Taj from a single astonishing building into the end of a long line of ideas.
• Check the weekday first: the Red Fort is closed on Mondays.

The second day covers what the first one left out.

• Start in the wide avenues of Lutyens' Delhi: India Gate, the long ceremonial axis, the gates of Rashtrapati Bhavan.
• This capital was laid out from 1911 as a deliberate reply to the Mughal city a few kilometres north.
• Standing between the two, you start to see how much argument is built into the stone.
• From there the car heads south to Qutub Minar, a 73 metre tower of red sandstone begun in 1193.
• In its courtyard stands an iron pillar that has gone some sixteen centuries without rusting.
• Next door the Mehrauli Archaeological Park is quiet and full of tombs and old stepwells, and it is a good place to slow down.
• Keep the late afternoon loose.
• Khan Market and Dilli Haat suit anyone who wants to browse, and a long lunch suits everyone else.
• On a Thursday, Nizamuddin Dargah holds qawwali singing after sunset.
• It is a working shrine, not a performance, so sit towards the back, cover your head and let it happen around you.
• Tomorrow starts early, so this is also a fair evening to rest.

Leave Delhi after breakfast and take the Yamuna Expressway south.

• The road is fast and well kept, and the journey runs three to three and a half hours with a short stop on the way.
• Your driver will bring you to the hotel before check-in so that you can leave bags and freshen up.
• A fast train does exist between the two cities, but this plan is built around the car, which keeps your luggage, your timing and your guide together.
• Visit the Taj Mahal in the last two hours before closing.
• The crowds thin out, the west face warms, and you are not rushing straight from a long drive to the most famous building in India.
• Shah Jahan built it between 1632 and 1653 for Mumtaz Mahal, in white marble from Makrana inlaid with semi-precious stones.
• The river terrace at the back is the calmest corner of the complex.
• If time remains, Agra Fort completes the story.
• It is where Shah Jahan was held for his last years, in a tower with a clear view along the Yamuna to the Taj.
• Across the river, Itimad-ud-Daulah is a smaller tomb finished in 1628, the first Mughal building faced entirely in marble.
• Its inlay work is finer than the Taj's own.
• Passports in original form are checked at the Taj gate, so keep yours with you rather than in the hotel safe.

Go back at dawn.

• This is the visit that justifies sleeping in Agra.
• The gates open shortly before the sun, the crowd is a fraction of the daytime one, and the marble shifts from grey to pink to white over the first hour.
• Allow ninety minutes, then return for breakfast and check out.
• Be aware that in December and January fog can hide the sunrise entirely.
• If that happens the building is still worth seeing, just in a softer, quieter light.
• By about nine you are on the road.
• An hour west, Fatehpur Sikri is the red sandstone capital Akbar built in the 1570s and left after fourteen years.
• Because nothing was built over it, it reads as a complete city and not a heap of fragments.
• The great gateway called the Buland Darwaza and the courtyards of the palace take around ninety minutes.
• Your guide meets you at the entrance, so you can walk past the touts in the car park without a conversation.
• Another three hours or so brings you into Jaipur by mid-afternoon.
• Do not plan a monument today.
• Walk the old city instead, look at the bazaars around Johari Bazaar, and eat early.
• The rose-pink walls date from 1876, when the city was repainted to welcome a royal visitor and then simply kept that colour.
• Tomorrow is the full day.

Reach Amber Fort around opening time, about eight.

• The palace climbs a ridge in stages, begun in 1592, and the sequence of courtyards is the point: through the Ganesh Pol gateway, into the Sheesh Mahal where mirrors cover the ceiling, then out to the garden below.
• We suggest walking up the ramp rather than riding an elephant.
• It takes about fifteen minutes and is kinder to the animals.
• The stepwell Panna Meena ka Kund, just below the fort, takes ten minutes and is usually empty.
• Return to the city by midday for the walled-city core.
• The City Palace, the Jantar Mantar with its stone astronomical instruments built in the 1730s, and the five-storey screen of the Hawa Mahal all stand within walking distance of one another.
• After two days of driving, being on foot again is a relief.
• Finish on the ridge at Nahargarh Fort for sunset.
• Jaipur was laid out in 1727 on a nine-block plan, and from up there the grid is actually visible.
• If your evening is free, a home-cooked dinner with a local family makes a better last night than a hotel restaurant.
• Departure the next day can be a flight from Jaipur, or a drive back to Delhi of five to six hours.