10 Year Itch

As a child I have watched numerous Hindi films of the 80s where the hero and heroine sang and danced between beautiful sand-stone columns and palaces. Somebody told me then that one of the places where these movies are shot is called Fatehpur Sikri and since then I’ve always wanted to visit it. It’s only during the preparation of our travel that I found out about Fatehpur Sikri being a UNESCO World Heritage site and that it’s just about 60km away from Agra. So we reserved day 3 in Agra for this excursion…

Continue reading

Monday night we used www.makemytrip.comto book our Tuesday’s journey from Delhi to Agra. Their new ‘rail’ section is really neat and it was very easy to make the bookings – they only charged Rs.20 as the booking fee for both tickets. The train was Ernakulam Millenium Express, which starts from the Nizammuddin station in Delhi at 5:55am and gets to Agra Cantonment by 9:35am. We woke up early, called for a Meru cab at 4:15am, which got us to the station by 5:15am.

Continue reading

Akbar’s Mausoleum

View from the entrance

Continue reading

Nicknamed the Baby Taj, Itimad-Ud-Daulah is the exquisite tomb of Mirza Ghiyas Beg.

Continue reading

With the Taj Mahal overshadowing it, one can easily forget that Agra has one of the finest Mughal forts in India.

Continue reading

Taj Mahal at Dusk

The entry to the inner compound is through a very impressive, 30m red sandstone gateway on the south side of the forecourt, which is inscribed with verses from the Quran.

Continue reading