Delhi in 3 days: the most historically layered city in Asia, where 2,300 years of successive capitals left monuments from the 12th-century world's tallest brick minaret to Lutyens' 1931 imperial city — and where a 1947 restaurant invention fed the world.
Shah Jahan built the mosque and the Red Fort simultaneously, facing each other across the same square. Climb the south minaret for the finest view of Old Delhi.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideShah Jahan's 1648 palace: the Diwan-i-Khas inscription, the looted Peacock Throne, the marble lotus fountain of the zenana. UNESCO World Heritage. Independence Day speeches from these walls.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe 1648 bazaar of Shah Jahan's daughter: 12 specialized markets branching from one road. Navigate the alleys by pedal rickshaw. The largest spice market in Asia is here.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLeftover tandoori chicken, tomato, butter and cream: the story of how the world's most internationally recognized Indian dish was created from fridge leftovers in a partition-era Delhi kitchen.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe first double dome in India, the first octagonal plan, the first true Mughal charbagh: the Taj Mahal's designer studied this building for 90 years before improving on it.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe first mosque in India (columns from 27 demolished Hindu temples), the tallest pre-modern minaret, and the Gupta-era iron pillar whose anti-corrosion secret is still metallurgically unexplained.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe most civilized coexistence of ancient monuments and urban leisure: yoga practitioners beside the Shish Gumbad (1489), families picnicking beside Sikandar Lodi's tomb (1517).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideManish Mehrotra's modern Indian menu: the doda barfi treacle tart, duck kulcha and meetha achaar pork ribs. Book 3–4 weeks ahead. The finest meal in India.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideEdwin Lutyens designed India's capital in 1911: India had it for 36 years before independence. The axial boulevard from India Gate to the President's Palace is the finest neoclassical urban perspective outside Paris.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe 10.8cm Indus Valley bronze that shows Greek contrapposto stance 2,500 years before Greek influence arrived, and the Gandharan Buddha with Greek facial features from Alexander's legacy.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLentil dumplings in cold yogurt with tamarind chutney from Natraj: the defining texture of Delhi street food, beside the bookshops and wine bars of the diplomatic enclave market.
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