Taj Mahal overnight from Delhi

Your driver collects you from your Delhi hotel in the morning, around nine, and the car takes the expressway to Agra, roughly three and a half to four hours with a break for coffee.

• You check in to your hotel, arranged as a five-star or heritage property, and have a late lunch and a short rest.
• In the afternoon your Agra guide meets you for Agra Fort, a vast red sandstone fort where the Mughal emperors lived and where a balcony looks down the river to the Taj.
• From there the car crosses to Itimad-ud-Daulah, a small marble tomb with fine inlay that is calm and rarely crowded.
• As the day ends, you may continue to Mehtab Bagh, the garden on the far bank of the Yamuna, where the Taj turns soft gold at sunset.
• Dinner is at your hotel or somewhere the guide recommends.
• Go to bed early, since the next morning starts before dawn.
• Wear comfortable shoes and keep water with you in the car.

Your driver takes you to the Taj Mahal gate before sunrise; the pickup time is confirmed the evening before.

• Your guide has your tickets arranged and walks you through security, then through the great gateway, where the Taj appears at the end of the garden.
• Walk the reflecting pool and the marble platform as the colour shifts from grey to pale gold.
• The Taj is quieter in these first hours, and photographs are best then.
• Allow about two hours.
• Return to the hotel for a slow breakfast, a bath and check-out.
• Your driver leaves for Delhi in the late morning, with a break on the way, and reaches the city by mid afternoon.
• You are dropped at your hotel, or at the airport or onward train if you have one.
• In December and January fog can hide the sunrise, so we keep the schedule flexible.
• The Taj is closed on Fridays, so this journey is planned to avoid a Friday morning.