The Spirit Of Travel

Hi everyone,

My first trip by myself did take me to India.

I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend of 8 years. Since I’ve always wanted to see parts of India, I knew I could not do the whole Subcontinent in one trip.

So I decided to travel to Rajasthan, which is culturally very interesting and in my opinion one of the better places to start.

Now today, I’m not going to talk a lot about Rajasthan itself, I’ll save this for another day.

What I do want to talk about today is the mighty Taj Mahal in Agra.

This monument probably is one of the best know in the World, it stands for eternal love of a man to his wife whom died during child birth at the age of only 39. Mind you she did give birth to 14 children.

Here’s a bit more background on what the name Taj Mahal means that might be of interest to you.

Taj is the Persian word for crown, and Mahal, also Persian, means place, area or neighbourhood. So the rough English translation is “Crown Place” or “Place of the Crown”.

The building and its Aura is just absolutely unbelievable, apparently the best time to visit is just a couple of days after full moon.

Unfortunately I didn’t make it for this but I visited it for the first time early on a Friday morning, as the moon was setting and the sun was about to rise. I was stunned, and so was my camera, when I went back later in the day, it wouldn’t take any more pictures and I had to have it repaired ;-).

I suggest you do take enough time to visit the site, some tour operators will take you there as a day trip from Delhi, which I personally, and many others agree it’s too little time just for the Taj itself not to mention that there is the Agra Fort, the “Baby Taj” another mausoleum and the sandstone ghost city of Fatehpur Sikri to be explored.

It’s not difficult to find hotel accommodation in Agra at all; there are any number of hotels available from the Sheratons to the Hiltons as well as accommodation used by locals, which, depending on your expectations can be quite suitable too.

It’s quite easy to get information on hotel rates etc via the internet; I somehow don’t think I need to give you instructions on how to do it. If so, by all means drop me a line, I’m happy to help out.

Happy travels!

Cheers

Barbara

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