Tours in Delhi

Start in Old Delhi, in the lanes behind Chandni Chowk, where the wires hang in knots overhead and the smell of frying dough and hot ghee reaches you before the corner does. Rickshaws squeeze through gaps that look too narrow for a person. Stop for a plate of paratha, eat it standing up, and you have already understood something about this city that no monument will tell you.

Delhi is really several cities stacked against each other. The Old City has the Red Fort and the great Jama Masjid, where you climb the steps, take off your shoes and look back over the rooftops. New Delhi is a different mood altogether, with wide avenues, India Gate at the end of a long lawn where families gather in the evening, and the grand government buildings along Rajpath. Humayun's Tomb and the Qutub Minar complex reward a slow wander, and Lodhi Garden is where locals go to walk, jog and sit under old trees. None of these is in our list yet, but a local guide can take a request for any of them.

What we do have is the one trip nearly everyone wants to make from here: a long day out to Agra by private car. You leave early, leave the traffic behind, and spend the day with the Taj Mahal, the sandstone walls of Agra Fort and the quieter, finely worked tomb people call the Baby Taj, just across the river. The Taj is as white and symmetrical as the photographs promise, but the gardens are where you slow down. Give yourself time there, and bring a hat.

Delhi rewards patience and a good pair of walking shoes. Pick the day trip below, or ask a guide to build something around the places that drew you here.