Delhi

Walls of red sandstone run 2.4 kilometres around it. Marks remain in the audience hall where the ceiling was once faced with silver.

The courtyard holds twenty five thousand people at once. Climbing the southern minaret spreads the rooftops of the old town underfoot.

Built a century before the Taj and taken as its model. All four sides match, so every approach is a front.

At 72.5 metres it is the tallest brick minaret anywhere. Beside it stands an iron pillar that has not rusted in over fifteen hundred years.

A trading street laid out in the seventeenth century now divides its lanes by trade. Cables bunch overhead thick enough to hide the sky.

Six tombs from the fifteenth century stand scattered across the lawns. In the morning local people walk here and practise yoga.

An arch of 42 metres carrying the names of the fallen closes a wide avenue. Once evening comes the lawns fill with people eating ice cream.

It was assembled from carved stone with no steel used anywhere. Cameras and bags are all left at the gate before entering.

A college and tombs stand beside a tank dug in the thirteenth century. Cafes and galleries now fill the streets around it.

It counts as the largest wholesale spice market in Asia. Chilli powder hangs thick in the air and a first visit brings on sneezing.

A black marble platform with an eternal flame marks where Gandhi was cremated in 1948. It sits in lawns toward the Yamuna, and footwear stays behind as you walk up. Visiting heads of state lay wreaths here, and access is closed off on those days.

A Sikh temple built over the mansion where the eighth Guru stayed, its gold dome facing a holy tank. You enter barefoot with your head covered, and the entrance lends head scarves. The kitchen serves a free meal to anyone, all day long.

A Bahai house of worship completed in 1986, with 27 marble-clad petals forming a lotus. Anyone may enter regardless of faith, and inside there is no sermon, only silent sitting. Queues are long, so staff admit visitors in small batches.

A stepwell hidden among office lanes behind Connaught Place, its stone stairs dropping straight to the floor below ground. The air cools as you descend, and pigeons and bats live in the wall niches. Entry is free, so office workers come down to rest at lunch.

A citadel built in turns by Humayun and Sher Shah in the 16th century. Inside stands the octagonal Sher Mandal, where Humayun fell on the stairs and died. Paddle boats ply the lake that fills the old moat outside the walls.

A Mughal garden tomb from 1754, counted as the last grand one of its line. Records say marble stripped from another tomb was used on its facade. It draws far fewer people than Humayun's Tomb, so the garden channels make for a quiet walk.

Some 100 monuments scattered through woodland south of the Qutub Minar. The Jamali Kamali mosque and tomb and the Rajon ki Baoli stepwell are linked by a single path. Entry costs nothing and signposting is thin, so carry a map.

The shrine of the 14th-century Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, reached down a narrow lane. On Thursdays after the sunset prayer, qawwali singing fills the courtyard. His disciple, the poet Amir Khusrau, lies in a tomb just beside it.

White colonnaded shopping arcades built from 1929 to 1933 form two concentric rings. Radial roads link the inner and outer circles, and a metro station runs beneath the central park. Each block carries a letter, so meeting points are given by block name.

Artisans from different states take short turns running stalls at this open-air market. Entry is ticketed, and inside a row of food stalls cooks dishes from each state. It beats department store prices and haggling works, but quality varies by seller.

The Tughlaqs raised this fort on a rocky outcrop during the 1320s and left it within a few years; long walls remain. A story holds that a Sufi saint cursed it to lie in ruins. With little shade anywhere, walk them in the low morning sun.

A former plant nursery beside Humayun's Tomb, restored and reopened to the public in 2018. Several Mughal-era tombs stand among ponds and flower beds. On winter weekends the lawns fill with families on picnic rugs.

A Tibetan refugee settlement on the Yamuna bank since the 1960s. Lanes one person wide pack in a small temple, eateries and bookshops. Monks and students crowd the alleys, and it feels like another country in the middle of north India.

The mansion where Gandhi spent his last months, shot in its garden on 30 January 1948. Stone footprints trace his final walk from his room to the prayer ground. His room is kept as he left it, bedding and spectacles in place.

Ruins of a 14th-century Tughlaq citadel, crowned by an Ashokan pillar from the 3rd century BC hauled in from afar. On Thursdays people tuck letters to the djinn into cracks in the walls and light candles. The cricket ground of the same name is across the road.