Purana Qila (Old Fort), Delhi

Delhi Tourism lists Purana Qila as open on all days, with no weekly closure. It is an ASI-ticketed monument, and the fee is set by the national ASI tariff: a low rate for Indian citizens and a higher one for foreign visitors (amounts in the card above).

Still photography is free; a video camera costs ₹25, the standard ASI charge for filming at ticketed monuments. The enclosure is large, so in the hot months come early.

The walls run for almost two kilometres around a roughly rectangular enclosure. Most of what stood inside is gone, which leaves a few strong buildings standing in open grass.

Purana Qila hosts Ishq-e-Dilli, a multimedia show run by ITDC that tells how Delhi was destroyed and rebuilt again and again, from Prithviraj Chauhan to the arrival of the metro, staged on the lawns with the fort as the backdrop. ITDC states that the show is not running while it is being upgraded, and its online booking is disabled. ITDC's page still shows the old seasonal timetable, and many websites copy it; it does not apply until ITDC reopens bookings.

The fort stands on Mathura Road, directly beside the National Zoological Park. Delhi Tourism gives the nearest metro station as Pragati Maidan; the station now carries the name Supreme Court (Blue Line), which is how the zoo's official site lists it. The zoo's site puts the station about 2 km from the zoo gate next door, so an auto-rickshaw saves a walk along busy roads.

The zoo and the fort make a natural pair for one day. Remember that the zoo is closed on Fridays, while the fort is not.

Excavations by B. B. Lal in 1954 and 1969–73, and by the ASI in 2013–14, 2017–18 and from 2023, found some 2,500 years of continuous settlement here, from Painted Grey Ware through the Mauryan, Shunga, Kushana, Gupta, Rajput, Sultanate and Mughal periods. That is why the site is identified with Indraprastha, the Pandavas' capital in the Mahabharata, though the identification rests on archaeology and tradition rather than an inscription.

Humayun began the walls and gateways around 1538 as the citadel of his new city, Dinpanah. Sher Shah Suri defeated him in 1540, took Delhi and carried on building; Humayun returned in 1555 and died here a year later. A wide moat once linked the fort to the Yamuna, which flowed along its eastern side.