India 7 Day Itinerary: Golden Triangle, Delhi, Agra and Jaipur

600 rupees for foreigners, 1h15, open daily until sunset. It is the first Mughal garden tomb in India, from 1570, and the model Shah Jahan followed at the Taj Mahal eighty years later.

Start here and the rest of the trip reads more easily: the double dome, the garden quartered by water channels and the red sandstone with white marble all come back in Agra and Sikandra.

100 rupees, 1 hour, 500 metres from the tomb. It was a British colonial plant nursery and became a heritage park in 2018 after fifteen years of restoration by the Aga Khan Trust.

Thirty six hectares hold six Mughal monuments, water channels, a rose garden and 80 bird species. It is the calmest place on this route and almost never appears on an agency list.

Free, 45 minutes, 3 kilometres from Sunder Nursery by rickshaw. It closes at 8pm, which makes it the last possible stop on arrival day.

The 15th and 16th century tombs stand loose on the lawn, unfenced, and the city uses the park to run and to court. If you only have one afternoon in Delhi, this is where it should end.

600 rupees, 1h30, closed Mondays. It was the Mughal imperial residence for two centuries from 1648 and is where the prime minister speaks every 15 August.

An honest warning: the interiors were stripped by the British after 1857, and what remains is marble pavilions in a large park. If your time in Delhi is short, the Qutub Minar and Humayun Tomb give more per ticket.

Free, 45 minutes, right outside the fort. This is the avenue laid out in 1650 by Shah Jahan daughter, now a tangle of lanes for spices, silver and stationery. Take a cycle rickshaw and get off at Paranthe Wali Gali.

300 rupees for a camera, 45 minutes, 600 metres from Chandni Chowk. It closes to visitors during prayers, with a wide window between 1.30pm and 6.30pm. Shoulders and knees covered, shoes off at the gate.

It is the largest mosque in India, finished in 1656 by the same emperor who built the Taj Mahal. Climbing the south minaret costs extra and gives the best view over Old Delhi.

550 rupees, 1h30, 16 kilometres south, 45 minutes by car. It opens daily from 7am to 5pm, and early light rakes across the inscriptions.

The brick tower was begun in 1199 and is the tallest masonry minaret in the world. The same grounds hold the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, built from the columns of dismantled Hindu temples, and the 4th century iron pillar that does not rust.

650 rupees, 1h30, 3 hours from Delhi on the Yamuna Expressway. Arrive after check-in, around 3pm, when the sun no longer punishes the courtyards.

It was the Mughal capital until 1638 and the place where Aurangzeb held his own father prisoner for the last eight years of his life. From the octagonal tower Shah Jahan could see the Taj Mahal where his wife lay. You get the same view.

310 rupees, 40 minutes, across the Yamuna. It dates from 1628, predates the Taj Mahal, and was the first Mughal building entirely faced in marble.

The pietra dura work, semiprecious stones inlaid into marble, is finer here than at the Taj itself, and you usually have it to yourself.

300 rupees, 50 minutes, 3 kilometres from the Baby Taj. It is the Mughal garden aligned with the mausoleum on the opposite bank, and the place to watch the sunset hit the marble.

Get there 45 minutes before sunset. In November and December the winter fog can erase the view: if the sky closes in, swap it for the Yamuna riverside and save the Taj for the next morning.

1,300 rupees plus 200 to enter the mausoleum chamber, 3 hours, closed on Fridays. Buy online, because sales are capped at 5,000 tickets per time slot, and the east gate has the shorter queue.

Be at the gate 30 minutes before sunrise. That first half hour is the only one when the marble changes colour and the reflection in the pool comes without people in front of it; from 9am the flow is continuous.

Shah Jahan spent 21 years and 20,000 workers burying Mumtaz Mahal here. Note that both cenotaphs in the chamber are false: the real graves lie in the crypt, closed to the public.

Free, 45 minutes, 3 kilometres from the Taj. The 1648 mosque was built by princess Jahanara and stands inside Kinari Bazaar, the cloth and wedding market of Agra, which is the best walk in town outside the monuments.

650 rupees, 1h15, 10 kilometres northwest on the Delhi road. Akbar began his own tomb while alive and his son finished it in 1613.

The sandstone gateway with marble inlay is the high point, and the surrounding park holds free roaming deer and monkeys. Hold on to your glasses and do not carry food in your hand: the monkeys here are quick.

550 rupees, 2 hours, 1 hour from Agra. Leave at 7.30am to get the site empty: the buses from Agra arrive after 10am.

Akbar founded the city in 1571 and the court left barely a decade later, for lack of water. What is left is an entire Mughal city in red sandstone with no later layer on top. Enter through the Buland Darwaza, the 54 metre gateway, and ignore the unlicensed guides who approach in the car park.

A token ticket, 1 hour, 2h30 from Fatehpur Sikri, in the village of Abhaneri, 95 kilometres from Jaipur. It is a 9th century stepwell dropping more than 20 metres across thirteen storeys of symmetrical steps.

You cannot go down, only walk the rim, and it is still the most photographed stop on this road. Add the ruined Harshat Mata temple on the other side of the wall. Abhaneri to Jaipur is another 1h30.

1,000 rupees since the price revision of 1 January 2026, 2h30, 11 kilometres north of Jaipur. It opens at 8am, which is when the light hits the palace head on, reflected in Maota Lake.

Do not ride up by elephant: the practice draws welfare campaigns, daily trips are capped, and a jeep covers the same stretch. Inside, look for the Sheesh Mahal, the mirror hall, and the Sukh Niwas, with the water channel that cooled the air before electricity.

Free, 30 minutes, five minutes on foot from the fort car park. It is a 16th century stepwell with symmetrical stairs across eight levels. Walking down the steps is not allowed, and the good photo comes from the north rim in the morning.

600 rupees after the 2026 revision, 1 hour, 11 kilometres south of the fort. The 1799 facade is five storeys tall with almost a thousand latticed windows, built so the women of the court could watch the street without being seen.

The classic photo comes from the pavement across the avenue, early in the morning, when the sun is full on the facade. Inside it is ramps and views over the Jantar Mantar, and the visit is shorter than the queue suggests.

1h30, 300 metres from Hawa Mahal. The ticket is separate because the palace belongs to the maharaja family, not the state, and it is not covered by the Jaipur pass: check the price on the official site before going.

The family has occupied the seven storey Chandra Mahal since 1732. What you visit are the courtyards, the costume museum and the four painted doors of Pitam Niwas Chowk, one for each season.

200 rupees, 1 hour, next to the City Palace. Nineteen masonry instruments were built here in 1734 by maharaja Jai Singh II, an astronomer before he was a king.

Take the guide at the entrance or the audio guide: without an explanation the place looks like a park of staircases. The Samrat Yantra stands 27 metres tall and tells local time to within two seconds.

Free, 30 minutes, 10 kilometres south at Jawahar Circle. The gateway opened in 2016 and each arch carries frescoes of one region of Rajasthan. It sits 8 minutes from Jaipur airport, an hour flight from Delhi.