Agra is a working craft city behind the marble icon: pietra dura inlay dynasties descended from Shah Jahan's own artisans, zardozi gold embroidery guilds, Kathak and Braj devotional song, and a fort-district art scene few visitors ever enter.
Live parchin kari demonstration: artisans grind malachite, lapis, carnelian and mother-of-pearl on bow-drills, then set slivers into Makrana marble by eye. Many families trace lineage to the Taj's own workshops. Open daily 09:00–19:00; entry free, no purchase pressure.
Built 1648 by Jahanara Begum, Shah Jahan's eldest daughter — one of few major Mughal monuments commissioned by a woman. Zigzag chevron inlay on three sandstone domes, and interior spandrels of glazed tilework. Open outside prayer times; no entry fee.
The 1635 tomb of Afzal Khan, a Persian poet-scholar and Shah Jahan's finance minister — India's only monument faced entirely in glazed chini tilework, in cobalt, turquoise and ochre. Much has spalled off, but the surviving patches show Persian ceramic technique transplanted to Hindustan.
Agra produces a large share of India's handmade footwear. In Hing ki Mandi lanes, karigars stitch mojari uppers and couch gold-wrapped zari thread over velvet on wooden adda frames — the same technique that dressed Mughal court robes.
The long-delayed state museum near the Taj's eastern gate, built to house Mughal arms, manuscripts and miniature painting, renamed in 2020. Construction has repeatedly stalled — check locally on the morning before travelling out, as opening status changes.
Sadar Bazaar's eating strip, where Agra's own dishes sit beside Mughal grills: bedai with aloo sabzi, jalebi in ghee, and petha — the translucent ash-gourd candy invented here, reputedly for Shah Jahan's construction crews.
A purpose-built 500-seat theatre staging a Kathak-and-drama retelling of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, with live-style Hindustani score, Mughal court costume and a Braj-inflected narration. Daily shows, typically 18:30 and 20:30 in English and Hindi slots; roughly 80 minutes.
One of Agra's four ancient Shiva temples, its lingam sheathed in silver. Evening aarti draws harmonium-and-dholak bhajan singing in Braj Bhasha, the regional dialect that carries Mira and Surdas — living oral repertoire, not a staged performance.
Founded 1598 after Akbar invited Jesuit priests to debate theology at his court. The adjoining cemetery holds Armenian, Portuguese and Dutch graves from the 1600s, including Mughal-style domed tombs bearing crosses — syncretism in stone.
Agra's wholesale trim market: reels of gota lace, kalabattun metallic thread, sequins and wedding-turban cloth, running under carved wooden havelis and tangles of cable. Trade lanes rather than souvenir lanes — shops shut Tuesdays in several sections.
Behind the sweetshops sit the bhattis where ash gourd is limed, boiled and candied in copper vats, plus Agra's cotton durrie pit-loom weavers — two trades that supplied the city long before tourism, both still family-run.
A community-run walk through a farming village opposite the Taj, past the Mughal-era Humayun Mosque, a stepwell and the Gyarah Sidi observatory steps, ending at the riverbank where potters and buffalo herders work with the mausoleum as backdrop.