Breakfast at the hotel. Today you will visit one of the Seven Wonders of the World: the Taj Mahal (closed every Friday throughout the year), the monument that has brought worldwide fame to Agra and become the symbol of India. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum that Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned in 1631 in honor of his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the Lady of the Taj, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child in 1629. Construction, which involved 20,000 people, was not completed until 1653. It is the most representative example of Mughal architecture. The chief architect, Isa Khan, designed this complex within a rectangle measuring 508 by 304 meters, with a central garden flanked on all four sides by octagonal pavilions. The mausoleum, built entirely of white marble, stands on a marble base with a minaret, also white, at each corner, reaching a height of 41 meters. The central section consists of four small domes surrounding a larger one in the middle. The remains of this couple rest in the crypt of this two-story building. While the architectural ensemble is impressive in itself, the decoration known as pietra dura, with its intricate details such as floral arabesques and geometric motifs in semi-relief adorned with precious stones, among other elements, is magnificent, making this structure a truly unique monument.
We will also visit the Red Fort , declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. Dating back to 1565, the fort was conceived as a walled palace surrounded by a deep moat. The fortress, accessed through an imposing gate called Amar Singh, contains numerous palaces and stately buildings constructed by the Mughal emperor Akbar and used by successive Mughal governments as a base of operations for Mughal power. Accommodation.