Tomar fort, Sultanate capital, Mughal Shahjahanabad and a colonial New Delhi laid out beside them — the ruins here are not scattered, they are layered.
1052
Lal Kot
The Tomar Rajputs wall the ridge.
1192
Sultanate
The Qutb rises on temple columns.
1648
Shahjahanabad
Shah Jahan moves the Mughal court.
1931
New Delhi
Lutyens' capital is inaugurated.
Shah Jahan's palace-fortress of 1639–48, its red sandstone walls enclosing marble audience halls; British troops barracked in it after 1857 and India took its flag here in 1947.
Closed Mondays. Buy tickets online and enter through Lahori Gate.
2.5 hrs
Shah Jahan's congregational mosque of 1656, India's largest in its day; the courtyard holds 25,000 worshippers.
Closed to visitors at prayer times. There is a fee for cameras and for climbing the south minaret.
45 min
A mosque begun in 1193 from the columns of twenty-seven dismantled temples, the minar rising beside it from about 1199, and a Gupta-era iron pillar standing rustless in the courtyard.
Go at opening, before the heat and the school groups.
2 hrs
Begun around 1565 for the emperor by his widow Bega Begum, the first great garden tomb in India and the model the Taj Mahal was drawn from.
Open daily from sunrise; morning light on the red sandstone is the best.
90 min
Built in 1754 for a Mughal prime minister, the last great garden tomb of the empire, and usually almost empty.
A ten-minute walk from Lodhi Garden's west gate.
45 min
Begun by Humayun as Dinpanah in 1533 and rebuilt by Sher Shah Suri after 1540 on the legendary site of Indraprastha, this fort's Sher Mandal later witnessed Humayun's fatal fall in 1556.
Open from sunrise. The excavation trenches near the museum show layers back to the Mauryan period.
90 min
The shrine of the Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya (died 1325), beside the graves of the poet Amir Khusrau and the Mughal princess Jahanara.
Qawwali after sunset prayers, especially on Thursdays. Cover your head and remove shoes.
90 min
A 60-meter stepwell of about 108 steps, probably rebuilt in the Tughlaq era, hidden between office towers off Hailey Road.
Free entry; a ten-minute walk from Barakhamba Road or Janpath Metro.
30 min
Constructed in 1321 by Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq, this massive rubble-walled citadel was abandoned within years — legend blames a Sufi saint's curse over water.
Bring water and sun protection; there is almost no shade. His tomb is across the road.
90 min
Firoz Shah Tughlaq's 1350s madrasa and tomb on the bank of a reservoir Alauddin Khalji dug a generation earlier.
Free to enter. Pair with the deer park next door and a late lunch in Hauz Khas Village.
60 min
The gold-domed gurudwara built where the eighth Sikh Guru stayed in 1664; its langar feeds thousands for free every day.
Cover your head (scarves are provided) and help in the kitchen if you like.
45 min
The black-marble platform marking where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated on 31 January 1948, inscribed with his last words, 'Hé Ram', beside an eternal flame. The memorials of Nehru and other leaders lie in the riverside gardens to the north.
Free and open daily from morning to early evening. Remove shoes at the gate. The National Gandhi Museum across the road (closed Mondays) adds context.
45 min
Lutyens' Viceroy's House, finished in 1929, crowns a classical palace of some 340 rooms with a dome modeled on the Buddhist stupa at Sanchi. Built for the Viceroy, it has been the President's residence since 1950.
Book online about a week ahead at visit.rashtrapatibhavan.gov.in. The main building tour runs on weekends only, the museum daily except Mondays, and the Change of Guard on Saturday mornings. Carry photo ID (a passport for foreigners). The Amrit Udyan gardens open to the public for a few weeks each spring.
2 hrs