Day Tour : Agra 101 , Dastarkhan-E-Akbarabad & Taj Mahal - Unimaginable Beauty

1. This tour has a little bit of everything about Agra. All topics ranging from history  to politics and geography to culinay traditions are covered in this adventure packed tour. We start our tour from the heart of “Akbarabad”, the Jama Masjid and see, feel and hear the beautiful though now chaotic city. We climb terraces to spot monuments, walk through 15th century markets, enter traditional homes and maybe meet a few local poets if we are lucky.

2. Experience the taste of true Mughal cuisine. In this experience we have partnered with the women of Hakiman Street, the oldest Mohalla/community of Agra. We go to our hosts home to enjoy a three course meal which is prepared in the most traditional way using locally sourced spices and food items.

3. Conversations abound on this dastakhan and we have seen from poetry recitals to sharing of old stories and tales here. The woman of the household are warm and hospitable and our dining room window offers the best view of Taj Mahal.Constructed over a 20-year period, between 1632-1653, on the southern bank of the Yamuna River in Agra, “Taj Mahal”, the famed complex is one of the most outstanding examples of Mughal architecture, which combined Indian, Persian and Islamic influences. Commissioned by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, “Taj Mahal”, is not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones. This enormous monument was dedicated to emperor’s beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Having its associations to devotion and ardour, the Taj was also a source of unimaginable beauty. The complex’s ordered symmetry symbolizes absolute power—the perfection of Mughal leadership and its grand scale and extravagance only brought glory to Shah Jahan’s reign.