Things to do
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Chandni Chowk
Laid out in the seventeenth century by Jahanara Begum, Shah Jahan's daughter, this street runs from the Red Fort to Fatehpuri Masjid through the densest part of Old Delhi. Motor traffic is barred along it through the day since a redevelopment, which makes the walk possible. The lanes off it hold the paratha shops, the spice market and the silver trade.
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Gurudwara Bangla Sahib
A gold dome marks a Sikh shrine off Baba Kharak Singh Marg, built on the house where the eighth Guru tended the sick during a smallpox and cholera outbreak in 1664. A tank of water fills the courtyard and a community kitchen serves free meals around the clock. Heads must be covered, shoes are left at the counter, and volunteers show newcomers where to go.
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Humayun's Tomb
Bega Begum commissioned this tomb for her husband, the second Mughal emperor, and it was finished in 1572. The red sandstone dome sits inside a walled water garden crossed by channels, a plan that later shaped the Taj Mahal. A long conservation programme restored the waterways and the lawns. Mornings are quiet, and the western face takes the low light late in the day.
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India Gate
Edwin Lutyens designed this arch at the eastern end of Kartavya Path to carry the names of Indian soldiers killed in the First World War and the Afghan campaign that followed. More than thirteen thousand names are cut into the stone. It is floodlit after dark and open at all hours, with lawns that fill on winter evenings.
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Jama Masjid
A flight of broad steps climbs from the streets of Old Delhi to a courtyard built to hold twenty five thousand at prayer. Shah Jahan finished the mosque in 1656 and it remains in daily use, so the gates shut to visitors around each call to prayer. The southern minaret is open to a narrow climb of a hundred and thirty steps.
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Lodhi Gardens
Fifteenth century tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi sultans stand in open parkland between Khan Market and Safdarjung, among them Sikander Lodi's mausoleum inside its own walled enclosure and the blue tiled Sheesh Gumbad. The grounds were landscaped in the 1930s and are free to enter from sunrise to sunset. Joggers have the paths early and the tombs stay quiet.
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Lotus Temple
Twenty seven marble petals in three rings form a Baha'i house of worship that opened in 1986 and takes in visitors of any faith. Services are short readings from scripture, with no sermons, no images and no ritual. Silence is kept inside the hall. The queue along the approach path can be long on weekends, and the doors close on Mondays.
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Mehrauli Archaeological Park
This park of ruins and monuments sits beside the Qutub Minar complex in Mehrauli, south Delhi, with walking paths between them. Plan one morning for both: see the minaret and its courtyard first, then walk the park straight after, in the first hours after sunrise before the heat builds.
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Qutub Minar
A victory tower of red sandstone and marble rises 72.5 metres over the ruins of Delhi's first mosque, begun by the sultanate's founder and raised in stages by his successors. In the courtyard beside it an iron pillar has resisted rust for some sixteen centuries. The staircase has been shut since a stampede in 1981, so the climb is no longer part of a visit.
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Red Fort
Shah Jahan built this sandstone citadel when the Mughal capital moved from Agra, and its walls still mark the northern edge of Old Delhi. Inside stand the two audience halls, a marble hammam and the Pearl Mosque, though British barracks replaced much of the palace after 1857. The gates close on Mondays, and the Prime Minister speaks from the ramparts each Independence Day.
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Akshardham
Phones, cameras and bags are left at a cloakroom outside the gate, and that queue is worth allowing for. Beyond it stands a carved sandstone and marble temple completed in 2005, ringed by a colonnade of stone elephants and a stepwell courtyard. A water show runs in the grounds after dark. The complex closes on Mondays.
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Hauz Khas Complex
A medieval reservoir sits at the centre of this south Delhi complex, with ruins beside the water and the shops and cafes of Hauz Khas Village in the lanes behind. The Deer Park next door makes an easy add. Green Park metro station is about a ten-minute walk away, and the lanes fill at night and on weekends.
