Heritage Spot of INDIA

Taj Mahal

      The historic city of Agra offers tourists a wonderful tourism experience with some of the best known monuments of India. The chief claim to fame of the city is for being the capital of Mughul India for more than a century. The Mughuls consolidated their hold on India from here and as their might grew, they patronized some of the most fascinating works of architecture that the world has seen. The Taj Mahal is the crowning glory of the Mughul era. It represents the supreme achievements of the architects and masons of medieval India. The unmatched splendor of the Taj Mahal still attracts scores of tourists every single day from all over the world. The Taj Mahal tours are the perfect options for exploring the tourist attractions in Agra. Before visiting Agra and its many wonders, learn more about Taj Mahal tours in touristplacesinindia.com.

      The Taj Mahal tours systematically cover all the monuments in Agra, as well as the other important tourist destinations located near the city. The massive Agra fort and Fatehpur Sikri are among the foremost highlights of tourism in north India and must be visited during a tour of Agra. The Agra fort was the center of Mughul imperialism in India and remained the symbol of Mughul might till the mid 17th century when the capital was shifted to Delhi by Shahjahan. The fort has many magnificent buildings, structures and gardens, including the Moti Masjid ( mosque), Angina masjid, Jahangiri Mahal, Diwan i Aam, Diwaan i Khas, Macchi bhawan, Daulat Khana i Khas, Khas Mahal, Shish Mahal, Anguri Bagh, and the imposing gateways. The fort also offers a splendid, although somewhat tragic view of the Taj Mahal some distance away along the banks of the river Yamuna. It is said that the old emperor Shahjahan, imprisoned in his own fort by his son Aurangzeb, spent his last few days gazing at the magnificent mausoleum he had built for his beloved wife.
          The fortified palace of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri, located 37 kilometers west of Agra is also a must visit site. This magnificent palace combines strong defensive features with delicate architecture. The beautiful red sandstone buildings stand alongside the village of Sikri. Apart from the palace and its splendid structures, the tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti and the massive gateway named Buland Darwaza are the chief attractions at Fatehpur Sikri.
       The Taj Mahal is of course the most important stop of all the tours. This massive marble monument needs no introduction. It is one of the most visited monuments of the world. The fifth Mughul emperor built his beloved wife this stupendous mausoleum, as per her dying wish that her tomb should be unlike anything that the world had ever seen. The magnificence of the Taj Mahal cannot be described in words. You have to visit it at least once as something remains unfulfilled in your life if you do not.
The other attractions of Agra include some lesser known tombs which are well worthy of a visit. The Chini ka rauza and the tomb of Itimad-ud daulat are the chief among these. Various Mughul gardens, including the Arambagh, whose origins go back to the reign of Babur, are also part of tourism in Agra.
Before choosing your itinerary, find out more about Taj Mahal tours so that you are well prepared when you land up in Agra.
Humayu Tomb:

      Humayun’s Tomb, Delhi, the first tomb built with several innovations, set at the centre of luxurious gardens with water channels, was the precursor monument to the Taj Mahal (built a century later). It was built in 1570 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Monument in 1993 for its cultural importance. It was built in 1569–1570 by the second Mughal Emperor Humayun’s widow Biga Begum (Hajji Begum). Its architecture is credited to Mirza Ghiyath and its Mughal architectural style has been acclaimed as the “necropolis of the Mughal dynasty” for its double domed elevation provided with Chhatris. Apart from the tomb of Humayun, the funerary also has 150 tombs of various members of the royal family. The tomb is built with a char-bagh (fourfold) layout with two gates, one on the south and the other on the west. It has a number of water channels, a pavilion and a bath. The tomb set on an irregular octagonal plinth has a raised dome of 42.5 m height, covered by marble slabs and decorated with chhatris.
Golden Temple :

 Sri Harimandir Sahib (The "Golden Temple") in Amritsar, Punjab, is the holiest shrine in Sikhism
This temple made by pure GOLD.

Ajanta Caves:

  Ajanta Caves listed under UNESCO World Heritage as a cultural heritage site, are Buddhist caves that were built in two phases, the first phase was from 2nd century BC. In the second phase, further additions were made during the 5th and 6th centuries AD of the Gupta period. The caves depict richly decorated paintings, frescoes, which are reminiscent of the Sigiriya paintings in Sri Lanka and sculptures. As a whole, there are31rock-cut cave monuments which are unique representations of the religious art of Buddhism


        Fatehpur Sikri, "the City of Victory," was built during the second half of the 16th century by the Mughal Emperor Akbar (1556–1605). It was the capital of the Empire and seat of the grand Mughal court, but only for 14 years. Despite bearing exceptional testimony to the Mughal civilization at the end of the 16th century, it had to be abandoned due to the twin reasons of lack of water and unrest in north-west India, leading the Emperor to shift the capital to Lahore. Akbar decided to construct it in 1571, on the same site where the birth of his son, the future Emperor Jahangir, was predicted by the wise saint Shaikh Salim Chisti (1480–1572). The work, supervised by the great Mughal himself, was completed in 1573. The complex of monuments and temples, all uniformly in Mughal architectural style, includes one of the largest mosques in India, the Jama Masjid, the Buland Darwaza, the Panch Mahal, and the Tomb of Salim Chishti. The English traveller Ralph Fitch considered the city in 1585 as 'considerably larger than London and more populous.' Its form and layout strongly influenced the evolution of Indian town planning, notably at Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi). The city has numerous other palaces, public buildings and mosques, as well as living areas for the court, the army, servants of the king and for an entire population whose history has not been recorded
      
      The Jantar Mantar in Jaipur is a collection of architectural astronomical instruments, built by Maharaja (King) Jai Singh II at his then new capital of Jaipur between 1727 and 1734. It is modelled after the one that he had built at the Mughal capital of Delhi. He had constructed a total of five such facilities at different locations, including the ones at Delhi and Jaipur. The Jaipur observatory is the largest and best preserved of these and has a set of some 20 main fixed instruments built in masonry. It has been inscribed as cultural property on the UNESCO World Heritage List as "an expression of the astronomical skills and cosmological concepts of the court of a scholarly prince at the end of the Mughal period.
 
     Konark Sun Temple is a 13th-century Sun Temple (also known as the "Black Pagoda"), at Konark, in Orissa. Located on the east coast of the Bay of Bengal in the Mahanadi Delta, it is built in the form of the chariot of Surya (Arka), the sun god with 24 wheels, and is heavily decorated with symbolic stone carvings and led by a team of six horses. It was constructed from oxidizing weathered ferruginous sandstone by King Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga Dynasty. The temple is one of the most renowned temples in India and is a World Heritage Site inscribed in 1984 as cultural property under categories (i), (iii) and (vi)


      The Elephanta Caves are a network of sculpted caves located on Elephanta Island, or Gharapuri (literally "the city of caves") in Mumbai Harbour, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the east of the city of Mumbai. The island, located on an arm of the Arabian Sea, consists of two groups of caves — the first is a large group of five Hindu caves, the second, a smaller group of two Buddhist caves. The Hindu caves contain rock cut stone sculptures, representing the Shaiva Hindu sect, dedicated to the god Shiva. The rock-cut architecture of the caves is dated to between the 5th and 8th centuries, although the identity of the original builders is still a subject of debate. The caves are hewn from solid basalt rock. Renovated in the 1970s, the caves were designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 to preserve the artwork 


     Red Fort Complex, also known as Lal Qila is a palace fort built in the 17th century by Shahjahan (1628–58), the fifth Mughal Emperor as part of his new capital city of Shahjahanabad. located to the north of Delhi. It represents the glory of the Mughal rule and is considered the Highpoint of Mughal architectural, artistic aesthetic creativity. The architectural design of the structures built within the fort represents a blend of Persian, Timuri and Indian architectural styles; Isfahan, the Persian Capital is said to have provided the inspiration to build the Red Fort Complex. The planning and design of this complex, in a geometrical grid plan with pavilion structures, was the precursor of several monuments which were built later in Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra and other places. The palace complex has been fortified by an enclosure wall built with red sand stone (hence the name Red Fort). It is adjacent to the Salimgarh Fort on its north built by Islam Shah Suri in 1546 and is now part of the Red Fort Complex (area covered 120 acres) under the revised inscription of the UNESCO World Heritage List under categories (i),(ii), (iii) and (vi)}}. Built between 1639 and 1648, enclosing an area of size 656 metres (2,152 ft)x328 metres (1,076 ft) and raising to a height of 23 metres (75 ft) on the right bank of the Yamuna River, it is linked to the Salimgarh Fort through a bridge over an old river channel, now a city road. The palace within the fort complex, located behind the Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audience), comprises a series of richly engraved marble palace pavilions, interconnected by water channels called the ‘Nehr-i-Behishit’ meaning the “Stream of Paradise”, the Diwane-i-khas (Private audience hall), several other essential private structures, and also the Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque built by Emperor Aurangzeb
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