Lahore has been an imperial capital three times over — Mughal, Sikh and British — and each layer left something standing. This route follows glazed-tile mosques, garden tombs across the Ravi, and the 1940 and 1947 sites that made Pakistan.
Shah Jahan completed this three-terrace Persian garden in 1641, fed by a canal cut 160km from Rajpot. Some 410 fountains, marble pavilions and the Sawan Bhadon waterfall niches survive; open 08:00–17:00 winter, later in summer.
The 1635 Persian bathhouse built by Wazir Khan lay buried under shops until an Aga Khan Trust restoration in 2013–15 uncovered its hypocaust furnaces, water channels and painted ceilings. A small museum fills the disrobing chamber.
Built 1634–41 for Shah Jahan's viceroy Hakim Ilam-ud-din Ansari, this holds the densest kashi-kari tile work in South Asia, every surface glazed in cobalt, ochre and green. Calligraphic panels run the full height of the prayer chamber.
The fourth Mughal emperor was buried across the Ravi in 1637. His garden tomb has no dome — only four 30m minarets and a pietra dura cenotaph inscribed with the 99 names of God. Akbari Sarai and Asif Khan's tomb share the walled complex.
Founded in 1865 and in this Mughal-revival hall since 1894, with Rudyard Kipling's father John Lockwood Kipling as first curator. Holds the Fasting Buddha of Gandhara, Sikh-era coinage, Mughal manuscripts and Partition documents.
A 4.3m bronze cannon cast in Lahore in 1757 for Ahmad Shah Durrani, fought over by Sikhs, Afghans and Bhangi chiefs for decades, and immortalised in the opening line of Kipling's 1901 novel Kim. It sits on a plinth on The Mall.
The 70m tower marks the ground where the All-India Muslim League passed the Lahore Resolution on 23 March 1940 — the demand that became Pakistan. Built 1960–68 by Nasreddin Murat-Khan; a lift or 324 steps reach the gallery.
Built 1859–64 as a castellated fort with turrets and rifle loopholes, deliberately defensible after the 1857 uprising. In August 1947 refugee trains from Amritsar arrived at these platforms carrying the dead of the Partition riots.
Opened in August 2022 inside the 1890 Town Hall, this is Pakistan's first museum devoted to 1947 — oral-history booths, objects carried by refugees, and maps of the Radcliffe Line drawn in five weeks by a man who had never seen India.
The only Sikh-period mansion in Lahore still standing with its original frescoes, mirror work and carved balconies, built around 1840 for Ranjit Singh's grandson. It has housed Victoria Girls High School since 1887.
South Asia's largest private collection: roughly 20,000 objects kept by the Fakir family, ministers to Maharaja Ranjit Singh, inside their own haveli. Kashmiri shawls, Mughal miniatures, illuminated Qurans and gifts from the Sikh court.
The Maharaja's ashes lie under a marble lotus urn, ringed by eleven smaller urns for the wives and attendants who committed sati at his cremation in 1839. Gilded fluted domes, ivory inlay, and Gurdwara Dera Sahib immediately alongside.