India, Done Right: A Luxury Journey from Delhi to Rajasthan and Mumbai

Delhi is two cities, and seeing it well starts with knowing which one you are in. Old Delhi, Shah Jahan's walled city of the seventeenth century, is the Red Fort, Jama Masjid and the dense lanes of Chandni Chowk. New Delhi, laid out under the British in the early twentieth century, is its opposite: wide avenues, government buildings and India Gate. The Qutub Minar, in the south, is older than both.

We saw India Gate, the Lotus Temple, Jama Masjid, the Qutub Minar and the Red Fort with a private guide, and I would not try to fit them into one day. Delhi's traffic decides how much you can see, so I organise the city by geography.

Start with the Red Fort, Shah Jahan's red sandstone palace-fortress, which now opens every day.

From there it is a short ride to Jama Masjid. Shoes come off at the steps, robes are available at the gate, and the mosque closes to visitors at prayer times, especially around Friday midday prayers, so make it a morning visit.

Then let the guide take you into Chandni Chowk by cycle-rickshaw; with someone local beside you, the crowd becomes part of the fun. By early afternoon, go back to the hotel: Old Delhi is a morning.

Begin at the Qutub Minar, the twelfth-century fluted sandstone tower surrounded by the ruins of a much older Delhi. Then the Lotus Temple, the Bahá'í House of Worship: white marble petals, open to every faith, free to enter and closed on Mondays. End at India Gate as the light goes, with the National War Memorial beside it.

If you arrive on a long-haul flight, keep the first evening for the hotel. Three nights gives you two full, unhurried days, and Delhi needs both.

Indian Accent is the restaurant I would build an evening around. It is in The Lodhi hotel, and its cooking pairs Indian flavours with global ingredients and techniques, as tasting menus or à la carte. When we ate there it was still Manish Mehrotra's kitchen; he left in 2024, and the executive chef today is Shantanu Mehrotra, who has been with the restaurant since it opened. Book well ahead.

Bukhara, at the ITC Maurya, is the opposite experience and a Delhi institution: North-West Frontier cooking since 1978, from the tandoor, at rough wooden tables, with aprons handed out so you can eat with your hands. Dal Bukhara and the Sikandari Raan are the dishes it is known for.

Choose Indian Accent for the creative tasting menu, and Bukhara for the classic.

Agra was the seat of the Mughal emperors at the height of their power, and almost everything worth seeing here was built by three generations of them in less than a century. The Taj Mahal is why you come. The rest of Mughal Agra is why I would stay two nights rather than one.

We went in at opening time, in the early morning, and I would recommend the same to anyone: the light is soft and the crowds are at their thinnest. The practical details, as the monument's official site publishes them:

• It is closed every Friday. Never make a Friday your only full day in Agra.
• It opens 30 minutes before sunrise and closes 30 minutes before sunset.
• Foreign visitors pay INR 1,100, plus an optional INR 200 for the main mausoleum, a little less online. The ticket includes shoe covers, water and the electric shuttles from the parking areas.
• Use the east gate. The official site recommends it to avoid crowds.
• Travel light. Food, drones, tripods, headphones and phone chargers are not allowed in, and there is no photography inside the mausoleum.

On five nights around each full moon, except Fridays and during Ramzan, small timed groups can also see the Taj Mahal by moonlight; places are limited.

We saw six Mughal monuments with our guide, spread over our stay, and I would not try to see them all in two days.

• Essential: Agra Fort, later on the Taj day. Akbar's red sandstone fortress, where Shah Jahan was later imprisoned within sight of the Taj Mahal, is where a guide adds the most.
• Worth adding: Itimad-ud-Daulah's Tomb, often called the Baby Taj: small, quiet and covered in inlay and painted decoration, a lovely contrast to the scale of the Taj.
• Worth adding: Mehtab Bagh at sunset, the garden across the Yamuna that gives you the Taj Mahal from the river side.
• If you have time: Akbar's Tomb at Sikandra, about ten kilometres from the centre.
• If you have time: Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar's red sandstone capital, about 40 kilometres west. It needs half a day of its own, which is the reason to add a third night.

Visit the Taj Mahal first: its ticket covers the local levy at Agra's other main monuments on the same day.

We enjoyed dining at The Oberoi Amarvilas itself; Esphahan, its dinner-only tandoor restaurant with live traditional music, is the room to reserve.

We also went to Peshawri, at the ITC Mughal, and I would recommend it: the same North-West Frontier tradition as Bukhara in Delhi, built on kebabs, breads and dal from the tandoor, and a good change of scene from the hotel.

After Delhi and Agra, Amanbagh is where the journey slows down. If anyone asks me which two nights to protect, it is these.

We broke the drive from Agra at Chand Baori, the stepwell in the village of Abhaneri, about 65 kilometres from Amanbagh. It was dug more than a thousand years ago to hold water through the dry season, and what stops you at the edge is the geometry: some 3,500 narrow steps falling thirteen levels in criss-crossing flights, with pillared galleries on the fourth side.

It is the reason I would always do this leg by road. Allow about an hour, ideally before the midday heat, and the transfer day gains a centrepiece.

Amanbagh sits behind high walls in the Aravalli hills, in country that was once a hunting ground of the Maharajah of Alwar: pink sandstone and marble, colonnades and domed pavilions around a long green pool. We loved the architecture, the atmosphere, the service, the spa and the surroundings.

We joined Amanbagh's Cow Dust experience, travelling out into the surrounding countryside in one of the resort's vehicles to observe village life around Ajabgarh. It is a gentle, respectful way into rural Rajasthan, the opposite of the monument days, and I recommend it.

The rest of our time went to the spa and to simply being at the resort. The contrast with the cultural intensity of Delhi and Agra is one of the reasons the itinerary works: two days with nothing to see are what make the next week feel fresh.

Udaipur is the softest city on the route: the old capital of the Mewar rulers, built around linked lakes in the Aravalli hills, with palaces along the shores and on islands in the water. Three nights let you see the city and still enjoy the hotel.

With our guide we saw the City Palace, the long palace complex of the Mewar rulers above Lake Pichola, now partly a museum, with painted walls, coloured glass and mirror-work, and windows framing the lake below. Go early: it is Udaipur's busiest sight. Jagdish Temple, a short walk away, is a seventeenth-century temple still in daily use; take off your shoes and dress modestly.

The part of Udaipur I remember just as clearly is not a monument. Our guide also took us away from the main sights into the ordinary streets and neighbourhoods of the old city, where Udaipur lives its daily life. That combination is how I would see it: the landmarks for the history, and an hour in the everyday city for everything they leave out.

Udaipur is best understood from the lake, and we went out on Lake Pichola by boat. From Udaivilas, the hotel's own boats cross to the old city in a few minutes, which also keeps the old city's noise on the far shore.

We ate at Upre by 1559 AD, the rooftop on top of the Lake Pichola Hotel, looking across the water to the City Palace and the lake's island palaces. Book it for sunset and ask for a table at the edge.

We also enjoyed dining at The Oberoi Udaivilas. Between October and March, Chandni, its open-air terrace facing the City Palace, is the table to reserve first.

For the last leg we flew from Udaipur to Mumbai, in Vistara Business Class. Vistara has since merged into Air India, in November 2024; this winter the route is flown nonstop by Air India, IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa Air, in roughly an hour and a half. If a business-class seat matters, look at Air India and check the cabin on your flight, and make sure the ticket lands at BOM: some Udaipur flights now use Navi Mumbai's new airport, much farther from Colaba.

After palaces and lakes, Mumbai is the right ending: India's commercial capital, crowded, fast and always on the move, and a side of the country Rajasthan never shows you.

We explored Mumbai with a private guide, visiting the Gateway of India, right outside The Taj Mahal Palace, and other parts of the city beyond the usual tourist circuit.

Organised tours of Mumbai's informal settlements are available, and some travellers choose them. We felt that experience wasn't for us, and observed these neighbourhoods from a distance instead.

We then took a local train to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. The suburban railway is how much of Mumbai gets to work, and even a short ride gave us a glimpse into everyday life in the city that no landmark could. At the end of the ride we explored CSMT itself: a Victorian Gothic station and UNESCO World Heritage Site whose architecture is remarkable.

If you take the train, go with a local guide and avoid the morning and evening rush hours. Trains have first-class carriages and carriages reserved for women, and tickets are sold at stations and through Indian Railways' RailOne app.

We had dinner at Ziya, at The Oberoi, Mumbai, where classic Indian dishes are taken apart and reimagined under the mentorship of the Michelin-starred chef Vineet Bhatia. Reserve ahead; gentlemen are asked to wear full-length trousers and closed shoes.

We also ate at Ekaa, in the Kitab Mahal building in the Fort district, where chef Niyati Rao's menus draw on India's regions, people and seasons and change through the year. Choose Ziya for a polished, classic evening, and Ekaa for something more experimental.