Agra
is located at some five hours of road (or three hours of express train) of
Delhi. The four-lane road is rather good. It constitutes however, for visitor
which unloads (if one makes of it the first stage of a tour), an initiation
with the Indian road: heavily charged carts, trucks puants, pétaradants, tops
colors, forts in klaxson, vehicles rolling with misconception, without hoping
the interminable suburbs to leave Delhi.
Completed in 1648 after 17 years of efforts Taj Mahal was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his late wife Mumtaz Mahal .
A monument which epitomises love as when imprisoned after being dethroned by his son the Emperor Aurangzeb he spent the last years of his life watching the Taj from his prison cell.
One can approach Taj Mahal only to foot or in the rickshaw. The cars are prohibited. It is not that after having crossed the monumental door, a red masterpiece of sandstone and a white, surmounted marble of two series of eleven pinnacles and four small houses flanking each angle, that one penetrates in the immense gardens with of the mughals .
At the bottom of a superb prospect, draws up Taj Mahal, elevated on its quadrangular base.
One can describe Taj Mahal, but I think that nothing replaces to see it. According to the hour of the jouney and lighting, it appears different: any white, bright, bluish, pink........and so on .
The
high pink sandstone massive walls of the Strong Red dominate the Yamuna river.
This fort shelters palates, of which especially that of Jahangir, an immense
room of the public audiences of the sovereign, gardens decorated with basins
and mosques.
Founded by the Emperor Akbar, it marks the birth of the imperial style moghol, fusion of art timouride with the architectural tradition hindo-Moslem woman prémoghole.
The
part of the fort where the Emperor Shah Jahan was locked up by his third son,
Aurangzeb, is named Musammam Burj. They are elegant white marble houses.
This place of reclusion, Shah Jahan could contemplate Taj Mahal, tomb of his
beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal.
A
third visit is essential on Agra, but it is necessary to cross the river Yamuna
and circulation on the bridge of access can take time... It is about the mausoleum
of Itimad-ud-Daulah: set up by Nur Jahan, poetess wife of the Emperor
Jahangir , in memory of her father Mirza Ghias Beg. It is a beautiful white
marble building, with the delicate ornamentations of semi-precious stone marquetry.
Its dimensions do not have anything gigantic and it rises in a pretty garden
close to the river.
Sikandra