A city of many capitals
Today Delhi is a vast capital of tens of millions of people, and it can be overwhelming on the first day. We think of it as a city of layers. You need a good guide to peel them back, and a calm hotel to retreat to between them.
A Rajput city first: in the twelfth century Delhi was held by the Chauhan king Prithviraj, who also ruled from Ajmer in Rajasthan.
- Rajput Delhi
- 12th century, under Prithviraj Chauhan
- Battle of Tarain
- 1192, the Sultanate begins
- Shahjahanabad
- Built from the 1640s
- Capital announced
- 1911, at the Delhi Durbar
- New Delhi opened
- 1931
- His walls survive: the remains of Qila Rai Pithora still run through south Delhi.
- Capital beside capital: after Prithviraj's defeat at Tarain in 1192, the city passed to the Delhi Sultanate, and each dynasty built a new capital beside the last: the Qutub complex, Siri, Tughlaqabad, Firozabad and the Purana Qila.
- Old Delhi begins: in the 1640s Shah Jahan moved the Mughal court here from Agra and built Shahjahanabad, the walled city we now call Old Delhi.
- The British move in: Calcutta was their capital first. At the great Delhi Durbar of 1911, King George V announced that the capital would move to Delhi.
- New Delhi rises: Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker spent the next two decades building it on the open plain south of the old city. It was inaugurated in 1931.
- Rajasthan's addresses: many of Rajasthan's ruling families built palaces of their own along its avenues, and some of those houses still carry their names.
- Greener than you expect: old trees line the avenues, there are tombs in every park and peacocks walk the gardens of the embassies.
How to handle your first night in Delhi
Stay one night, even if you're heading straight on: give yourself one full night and a slow morning in Delhi before you leave for Rajasthan.
Landing before midnight: go straight to a central hotel. You'll wake up in a quiet, leafy part of the city, close to everything you want to see.
Landing in the small hours and leaving the same day: a hotel in Aerocity, the hotel district beside the airport, saves you the drive and buys you more sleep.
- Most flights land
- Late at night or before dawn
- Airport to Lutyens' Delhi
- Often about 40 minutes at night
- Airport hotels
- Aerocity, beside the airport
- Allow
- One full night and a slow morning
- Meet inside arrivals: have your hotel or our team meet you inside the arrivals hall. Don't accept offers from drivers you didn't book.
- Sort money on landing: change a little money or set up a UPI or card wallet at the airport. Our guide to SIM cards and internet explains how to get connected on day one.
- Hold the room: ask for an early check-in or a room held from the night before, so you can sleep the moment you arrive.
- Keep the first morning light: a late breakfast, a swim and a walk in Lodhi Garden is a far better start than the Red Fort at nine.
- Eat simply on the first night: room service dal and rice is a perfectly good introduction to Indian food after twelve hours on a plane.
- Water and street food: drink bottled or filtered water, and leave the street food until you have a guide beside you.
Old Delhi, Shah Jahan's walled city
- Red Fort built
- 1639 to 1648
- Red Fort closed
- Mondays
- Chandni Chowk
- Laid out around 1650
- Jama Masjid built
- 1650 to 1656
- Best hour
- Six in the morning
- Getting around
- On foot and by cycle rickshaw
- On foot, never by car: we do Old Delhi on foot and by cycle rickshaw. Our piece on an Old Delhi food walk has the route we take our own visitors on.
The Red Fort
Who and when: Shah Jahan built his palace fortress between 1639 and 1648 on the banks of the Yamuna, which has since shifted away.
The name: its red sandstone walls give it the name Lal Qila.
- Inside: beyond the covered bazaar of Chhatta Chowk lie the hall of public audience and the white marble Diwan-i-Khas.
- The Peacock Throne: it stood in the Diwan-i-Khas until the Persian invader Nadir Shah carried it off in 1739. A Persian verse on the walls declares that if there is a paradise on earth, it is here.
- Independence Day: every 15 August the Prime Minister speaks to the nation from the ramparts above the Lahori Gate.
- Listed, and shut on Mondays: UNESCO listed the fort in 2007. It is closed on Mondays, so plan your Old Delhi day accordingly.
Chandni Chowk
The moonlit street: Shah Jahan's daughter Jahanara laid out this great avenue around 1650, with a water channel down its middle that is said to have caught the moonlight and given the street its name.
Faiths side by side: temples, a gurdwara and mosques stand within a few hundred metres of one another.
- Lal Mandir: the Digambar Jain temple stands near the Red Fort end, with a hospital for birds behind it.
- Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib: it marks the place where the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur, was executed in 1675.
- Fatehpuri Masjid: the mosque that closes the far end of the avenue.
- How we walk it: early, and then we dive into the lanes on either side.
The Jama Masjid
Built: by Shah Jahan between 1650 and 1656, on a rise above the old city. It is among the largest mosques in India.
- At Eid: its courtyard can hold many thousands of worshippers.
- How to enter: climb the steps on the eastern side, leave your shoes, cover up, and avoid the times of prayer.
- The view: from the courtyard you look straight down the old city towards the Red Fort.
The lanes of the traders
Sorted by trade: like Jaipur, Old Delhi gives each trade its own street.
Dariba Kalan: silver and jewellery, for centuries.
- Kinari Bazaar: wedding trimmings and glittering turban bands.
- Khari Baoli: at the western end, one of the largest wholesale spice markets in Asia. The warehouse roofs above it give a startling view over the city.
- Go with the right guide: someone who knows the families, because a closed shutter often hides the best shop.
Tombs, towers and gardens of south Delhi
- Humayun's Tomb
- Finished around 1570, UNESCO 1993
- Qutub Minar
- Begun 1190s, about 73 m tall
- Jantar Mantar
- Built 1724 by Jai Singh II
- Best light
- Late afternoon at Humayun's Tomb
- Qawwali
- Nizamuddin, evenings, best on Thursdays
Humayun's Tomb, in the late afternoon
The story: the second Mughal emperor died in 1556 after falling on the stairs of his library. His widow, Bega Begum, commissioned his tomb.
The architect: it was finished around 1570 to designs by the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas.
- Why it matters: the first great garden tomb in India, set in a charbagh of water channels and walkways. You can trace a straight line of ideas from here to the Taj Mahal.
- Care and listing: UNESCO listed it in 1993, and it was carefully restored with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.
- 1857: the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, took refuge here before he was captured by the British.
- When to come: in the last two hours of light, when the sandstone turns rose and gold.
Nizamuddin and Sunder Nursery
The shrine: across the road from Humayun's Tomb lies the old quarter around the shrine of the Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, who died in 1325.
- Amir Khusrau: the poet is buried nearby.
- Qawwali: on many evenings, and especially on Thursdays, qawwals sing in the courtyard.
- Sunder Nursery: next to the tomb complex, a sixteenth-century garden landscape restored into one of the loveliest parks in Delhi, with tombs, lotus pools and families picnicking under the trees.
The Qutub Minar, at opening time
Builders: begun in the 1190s by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the first of the Delhi sultans, and finished by his successor Iltutmish.
The tower: about 73 metres in five fluted storeys of red and buff sandstone, banded with carved verses.
- Quwwat-ul-Islam: the mosque at its foot was built using pillars taken from earlier Hindu and Jain temples, and you can still see their carvings.
- The Iron Pillar: more than fifteen centuries old, it stands in the mosque courtyard and has barely rusted.
- Listed: UNESCO listed the complex in 1993. Come at opening time, before the crowds.
Mehrauli and Hauz Khas
Mehrauli Archaeological Park: around the Qutub Minar, scattered with tombs, step tanks and mosques from several centuries. You can walk it for an hour without meeting another visitor.
- Hauz Khas: a little north, a great medieval reservoir lined with the ruins of a fourteenth-century college, now surrounded by cafés and boutiques.
- When: we like it at dusk, when the herons come in to roost.
Lodhi Garden, early in the morning
Delhi's morning walk: this is where the city takes it.
- The tombs: fifteenth-century tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi sultans, with old trees, bougainvillea and birdsong around them.
- Good for: the perfect gentle first outing after a long flight.
Jantar Mantar, a Jaipur king's observatory
Where: near Connaught Place, a set of giant stone instruments that every Jaipur family recognises at once.
- Who built it: Sawai Jai Singh II in 1724, the same astronomer-king who later founded Jaipur.
- The first of his observatories: he raised several across north India, and this one came first. The larger and better-preserved one is at home in Jaipur's Jantar Mantar.
Lutyens' Delhi and the houses of the maharajas
When guests ask us how Rajasthan's royal families fitted into the British Raj, we start the answer here, among the Delhi residences the princely states built around India Gate.
An imperial stage: a great ceremonial avenue, now called Kartavya Path, runs from India Gate up Raisina Hill to Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Rashtrapati Bhavan: the former Viceroy's House, now the home of India's President. Lutyens designed the house and much of the plan.
- Kartavya Path
- India Gate to Rashtrapati Bhavan
- India Gate
- By Lutyens, completed 1931
- Amrit Udyan
- Open a few weeks a year, usually spring
- Jaipur Column
- Gift of Sawai Madho Singh II
- The Secretariats: Herbert Baker designed the two blocks on either side.
- East meets west in stone: a deliberate blend of European classicism and Indian forms, with domes inspired by Buddhist stupas, chhatris on the rooflines and jali screens in the stone.
- Amrit Udyan: the Mughal-style gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan open to visitors for a few weeks each year, usually in spring.
- The Jaipur Column: given by Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II of Jaipur to mark the founding of the new capital.
- Jaipur House: now the National Gallery of Modern Art, with a fine collection of Indian painting.
- Bikaner House: a cultural centre, and also where comfortable state buses leave for Jaipur.
- Hyderabad House: used by the government for state visits.
- India Gate: a war memorial designed by Lutyens and completed in 1931, carrying the names of Indian soldiers who died in the First World War.
- Evenings at India Gate: families walk the lawns, eat ice cream and watch the lights come on. It is one of the few places where the whole city seems to share the same space, and we always stop for half an hour.
Where to stay in Delhi
- Central and historic
- The Imperial, Janpath
- Near the gardens
- The Oberoi, The Lodhi
- Diplomatic quarter
- The Leela Palace, ITC Maurya
- Late arrivals
- Aerocity, beside the airport
- On the Jaipur road
- Neemrana Fort-Palace
The Imperial
Where: on Janpath, a short walk from Connaught Place and close to Old Delhi.
History: it opened in the 1930s as New Delhi was being built, and it still feels like it.
- Inside: corridors hung with colonial-era prints and paintings, and a calm, palm-lined drive.
- A local favourite: its bar and restaurants are where Delhi families come for celebrations.
- Choose it for: history and a central location.
The Oberoi, New Delhi
Setting: overlooking the green of the Delhi Golf Club.
- Close to: Humayun's Tomb, Lodhi Garden and Khan Market.
- Character: polished and quiet, with famously precise service.
- Room to ask for: one on the golf course side, where you look out over trees instead of traffic.
The Leela Palace, New Delhi
Setting: Chanakyapuri, the diplomatic quarter.
- Character: the most palatial of the city's hotels, with marble, chandeliers and a rooftop pool.
- Good for: a grand, cocooned first night and easy access to the airport.
Other good choices
Also excellent: the Taj Mahal Hotel on Mansingh Road, ITC Maurya in Chanakyapuri and The Lodhi near Lodhi Garden.
- Very late arrivals or early departures: the Aerocity hotels beside the airport are practical and comfortable.
- On the road to Jaipur: the fifteenth-century Neemrana Fort-Palace makes a characterful first stop.
- Compare them all: our guide to luxury hotels in Delhi.
What Delhi eats, from old lanes to grand dining rooms
Where it all began: Old Delhi is where the city's food was born.
Nihari at dawn: in the early morning, men queue in the lanes around the Jama Masjid for nihari, a slow-cooked meat stew eaten with bread.
Karim's: near the mosque's southern gate, it has served Mughlai kebabs and curries to the old city for generations.
- Old city breakfast
- Nihari around the Jama Masjid
- Winter only
- Daulat ki chaat, gone by midday
- Grand dinner
- Bukhara or Dum Pukht, ITC Maurya
- Modern Indian
- Indian Accent, The Lodhi
- Paranthe Wali Gali: off Chandni Chowk, fried stuffed breads of every kind.
- Daulat ki chaat: a cloud of whipped milk foam that only appears in the cold months and vanishes by midday.
- Butter chicken and dal makhani: Delhi is home to much of what the world calls North Indian food. These dishes belong to the Punjabi families who came after Partition in 1947 and opened restaurants across the city.
- Chaat: the tangy street snacks of potato, chickpeas, yoghurt and chutney are a city-wide religion.
- Bukhara, ITC Maurya: robust frontier cooking from the tandoor, and you eat with your hands.
- Dum Pukht, ITC Maurya: slow-cooked dishes in the courtly style of Lucknow.
- Indian Accent, The Lodhi: the place for modern Indian cooking.
- The rest: our food of Delhi guide covers the city's other kitchens.
Crafts and shopping in Delhi
National Crafts Museum: at Pragati Maidan, the best introduction to India's crafts we know, with village houses, textiles and folk art, and artisans demonstrating their work in the courtyards.
Dilli Haat: an open-air market where craftspeople from different states rent stalls in rotation. The food stalls from every region are fun at lunchtime.
- Best introduction
- National Crafts Museum, Pragati Maidan
- Crafts of every state
- Dilli Haat
- Contemporary design
- Khan Market, Meherchand Market, Mehrauli
- Old Delhi buys
- Silver, spices, wedding trimmings, kites
- Contemporary Indian design: the boutiques of Khan Market, Meherchand Market and the Mehrauli area, where Delhi's own families shop.
- Old Delhi: silver, spices, wedding trimmings and paper kites.
- Save for Jaipur: block prints, blue pottery and gemstones.
- Save for Agra: leather and inlay from its craftsmen.
- Shop without the commission: our shopping guide explains what to buy where and how to avoid the commission shops.
When to come to Delhi
October to March: the best weather of the year, but it comes with a caution.
Smog: in November and December, smoke from crop burning in neighbouring states and the winter inversion can give Delhi some of the worst air in the world for days at a time.
- Best season
- October to March
- Clearest months
- February and March
- Smog risk
- November and December
- Fog
- December and January mornings
- Hottest
- April to June, often above 40°C
- Monsoon
- Late June into September
- Fog: in December and January it can delay flights and trains, especially in the early morning. We watch the forecasts and keep days flexible.
- February and March: often the clearest and most pleasant months.
- April to June: very hot, often well above 40°C. We keep sightseeing to early mornings and evenings.
- Monsoon: it arrives around the end of June and lasts into September, with heavy downpours, green parks and sticky heat.
- Month by month: our guide to the best time to visit Delhi.
Republic Day and Beating Retreat, late January
26 January: a great parade of regiments, camel corps, tableaux and flypasts moves along Kartavya Path.
- 29 January: the Beating Retreat ceremony at Vijay Chowk brings military bands to the foot of Raisina Hill as the buildings light up.
- Planning: seats are allotted in advance, and security is tight for days around both events.
Independence Day kites, 15 August
- Kites over the old city: just as Jaipur flies kites on Makar Sankranti, Old Delhi flies them on Independence Day.
- What you'll see: every roof in the walled city full of families and paper kites, and the sky above the Red Fort busy from morning until dusk.
Diwali, October or November
The weeks before: Delhi's markets glitter, and its families exchange sweets and gifts.
- The catch: the air around Diwali is often poor, so we plan Rajasthan for the festival itself.
- Read more: our guide to Diwali in Rajasthan.
From Delhi into Rajasthan and beyond
To Jaipur by road: about four to five hours, often less on the new expressway. Our note on the Delhi to Jaipur expressway explains the route and the stops we make.
To Jaipur by train: fast trains such as the Vande Bharat and the Shatabdi take a little over four hours.
- Jaipur by road
- About four to five hours
- Jaipur by train
- A little over four hours
- Agra by train
- Under two hours, Gatimaan Express
- Agra by road
- About three to four hours
- Flights south
- About an hour to Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur
- To Agra: the Gatimaan Express from Hazrat Nizamuddin takes under two hours, and the Yamuna Expressway makes the drive about three to four. Read our guide to Agra and the Taj Mahal.
- Flying south: flights reach Jaipur, Udaipur and Jodhpur in about an hour, which is how many of our guests begin a journey in the south of Rajasthan.
- Around Delhi: a private car with a driver who knows the city is essential.
- In Old Delhi: a guide on foot makes all the difference.
Two days in Delhi, the way we'd spend them
- More versions: our Delhi itinerary guide and the article Delhi in two days.
- Ready-made journeys from here: Delhi, Jaipur and Agra in luxury and Delhi, Jaipur and Udaipur.
Day one, after arrival
Morning: sleep late, then walk in Lodhi Garden before lunch.
- Afternoon: rest, then visit Humayun's Tomb and Sunder Nursery in the late light.
- Evening: if it is a Thursday, end at the Nizamuddin shrine for qawwali. Dinner at your hotel.
Day two, Old Delhi
Early: start at the Jama Masjid, then walk and cycle-rickshaw through Chandni Chowk, Dariba Kalan and Khari Baoli with a guide, eating as you go.
- Late morning: the Red Fort, unless it is a Monday.
- Dusk: after an afternoon's rest, see India Gate and the lit avenues of Lutyens' Delhi.
Day three, the Qutub and onward
Opening time: reach the Qutub Minar early and walk the Mehrauli Archaeological Park.
- Lunch: in south Delhi.
- Onward: drive to Jaipur or take the afternoon train, arriving in time for dinner.
What we tell our own cousins about Delhi
Don't plan Rajasthan for landing day: one night in Delhi makes the whole journey better.
Check the air: look at the air quality before you plan a long day outdoors in November or December, and keep a mask in your bag.
- Delhi's oldest trick: ignore anyone who tells you a monument is closed and offers to take you somewhere better.
- Dress for sacred places: dress modestly for the Jama Masjid, the gurdwaras and the Nizamuddin shrine, and carry a scarf to cover your head.
- Choose your car: use a hotel car or a car we arrange rather than hailing taxis on the street, especially at night.
- Old Delhi sense: keep your phone and wallet in front of you, and let your guide choose where to eat.
- Look for the Rajasthan in Delhi: the Jaipur Column, Jai Singh's Jantar Mantar and Prithviraj Chauhan's walls. They make the drive to Jaipur feel like going home.
