Sikandra

About 10 km from the center, on the road toward Delhi, lies Sikandra, the tomb of Akbar, the greatest of the Mughal emperors. Akbar began building it himself; his son Jahangir finished it in 1613.

Architecturally it's the missing link between the red-sandstone Mughal style and the white marble of the Taj: a tiered sandstone pyramid with marble minarets and a spectacular gateway covered in geometric inlay. The tomb stands in a vast charbagh garden where blackbuck antelope and langurs roam freely, and tourists are few, so the place keeps a calm that the Taj lost long ago.

Practical: open sunrise to sunset daily; around 300 rupees for foreigners, 30 for Indians. Half an hour by car from the center, easy to combine with the drive to or from Delhi.

The tomb of Akbar the Great