India

You are met in Delhi and flown onward to Varanasi, where the car brings you through the cantonment's green to Nadesar Palace, a nineteenth-century residence set in its own gardens away from the crush. In the evening you go to the river for the first time: the Ganga aarti at Dashashwamedh, watched from a reserved boat on the water, fire and bells carrying across the dark. It is the right first meeting with the city.

Varanasi · 1 of 3 nights · Flight via Delhi · The first meeting

Before first light you are on the water, drifting past the ghats as the city wakes: bathers, wrestlers, priests, laundry, all of it older than almost anywhere else on earth. Breakfast afterwards, then the lanes of the old city on foot with your guide, from the Kashi Vishwanath corridor to the hidden shrines the lanes keep to themselves. The afternoon is deliberately empty; Varanasi rewards sitting still. In the evening, dinner at the hotel under the neem trees.

Varanasi · 2 of 3 nights · By boat and on foot · The essential morning

A short drive to Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first teaching and a broken pillar still carries the lions that became the national emblem; the site is quiet, green and best in the morning. Back in the city, the afternoon belongs to the weavers: Banarasi silk on working pit looms in the Muslim quarter, an hour that explains why the sari trade still speaks this city's name with respect. A final unhurried evening, on the water if you want it again.

Varanasi · 3 of 3 nights · Private car and on foot · Deep

The short flight south lands you in open farmland, and the temples appear out of it like something left behind by a larger civilisation, which is roughly the truth. The western group is kept for the late afternoon, when the sandstone goes gold and the coaches have gone. Your guide reads the carvings the way their builders meant them: a complete picture of life, sacred and worldly together, delivered plainly and without embarrassment. Dinner facing the floodlit spires.

Khajuraho · 1 night · Flight (under 1 hr) · Golden hour

A travelling day, arranged so it earns its keep. The road runs to Jhansi with a stop at Orchha, whose riverside cenotaphs and palaces see a fraction of the visitors they deserve; lunch is taken there. From Jhansi the express train covers the rest, and by evening you are at Amarvilas, where every room faces the Taj Mahal. You will see it properly tomorrow; tonight it is enough that it sits outside the window while you eat.

Agra · 1 night · Car, Orchha, express train · A travelling day, broken well

The Taj at dawn closes the journey: first entry with your guide, the long reflecting view almost to yourselves, the marble still holding the night's cool. Breakfast back on the terrace, then the expressway to Delhi, where you are met and walked through to the international departure. Three of the oldest ideas in India, seen in the right order, at the right hours.

Agra · Expressway to Delhi (3 hrs) · Met throughout · A quiet close