Agra is a city that is proud of its history. The wind here whispers a story from its past of emperors who dreamed in sandstone, of poets who penned in love, of masons who carved in stone. Sitting on the banks of the Yamuna, Agra is not a city but a history of the Mughal dream, a gallery of domes, minarets and stories. Agra was once the heart of the Mughal Empire, blazing in the custodianship of emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. From the splendour of Fatehpur Sikri to the glittering marble of the Taj Mahal, this city was the expression of the empire's vision of paradise. It is today one of India's three UNESCO World Heritage cities, and to walk its streets is to read a picture book of ambition, devotion and aesthetic splendour.
The city of Delhi is the political nerve centre of all India and the largest commercial hub in northern India. South Asia's rulers have always prized the city. The ancient epic Mahabharata places the great town of Indraprastha on the banks of the Yamuna River, perhaps in what is now Delhi's Old Fort. Late in the first millennium AD, Delhi became an outpost of the Hindu Rajputs, warrior kings who ruled what's now Rajasthan. Delhi is a city that breathes in two tenses at once — in the smoke-blackened lanes of Shahjahanabad, where the call to prayer spirals above the rooftops of the Jama Masjid and handcart vendors cry out over the same cobblestones that once trembled beneath Mughal elephants, time moves in circles, thick with the scent of cardamom and centuries; yet just a metro ride away, the broad imperial boulevards of Lutyens' Delhi unfurl toward glittering towers of glass and steel, where young professionals tap at laptops in air-conditioned cafés, entirely unbothered by the fact that a few kilometres north, a silversmith is still plying a trade his great-grandfather taught him in a haveli that has not changed its face since Shah Jahan sat on the Peacock Throne. This is Delhi's quiet miracle — not that old and new coexist, but that they coexist without apology, each utterly indifferent to the other's existence, like two rivers running parallel.
The extraordinary Ellora Caves consist of an invaluable ensemble of 34 monasteries and temples, including Hindu, Mahayan and Vajrayan Buddhist as well as Jain caves,.
The world-renowned UNESCO Ajanta Caves consist of 30 Buddhist cave monuments excavated into a rock surface nearly 76 metres high,
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noteworthy. Ellora Caves were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site over half a century ago.
CE. The Ajanta Caves are famous for their murals, the finest surviving examples of Indian art,
