The Quintessential India: A Weekend at the Taj Mahal

We have just returned home to Delhi from a long weekend in Agra. John planned our travels to see the Taj Mahal and surrounding sights, and he did a super job! Friday we arrived with plenty of time to visit the Agra Fort and the Baby Taj, then see the sunset view of the Taj Mahal from the opposite side of the Yamuna River.

The Agra Fort is a misnomer--although it does still serve a military function, it is a splendid complex of 16 different Mughal palaces.

(As best we can tell, Mughal, Moghul, and Mogul are all the same term with different spellings.) Thanks to our friendly and helpful taxi driver who took care of all of our getting-around from Friday through Monday, we also made contact with a guide to the Agra Fort who had 35 years' experience at the site. He really made it come alive for us.

The architecture is magnificent, the tales of palace intrigue are exciting, and the image it evokes of Mughal splendor are vivid. We also were able to see the Glass (or Mirrored) Palace, the bathing place of Mumtaz, the queen whose tomb is the Taj Mahal. With a little bakshish to the man with the right keys, we were hustled into the locked Glass Palace. It consists of three chambers completely lined with small, intricate mirrored panels. Each chamber has a bathing pool (hot, cold, and rose-scented) and a place for dancing girls to dance and musicians to play music. By the light of flickering candles reflected thousands of times over, it must have been an overwhelming sensory experience for Mumtaz to take a bath!