Old Delhi

After breakfast proceed for a guided sightseeing of Old Delhi. Visit Juma Mosque and drive through fabled Chandni Chowk. Visit the Red fort, built by the builder of Taj Mahal Shahjehan and famous for its delicately carved inlaid and marbled Royal Chambers, Raj Ghat where the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi was cremated and finally the ruins of old fortress and Ashok pillar (300 BC).

Sightseeing continues with visit to Humanyu's Tomb, aptly called the predecessor of the Taj Mahal, Qutab Minar, 72 mt high and one of the perfect towers of the Persian world. An orientation drive through New Delhi including the Embassy area (Diplomatic Enclave), Govt. buildings (1921 30 AD), Jantar Mantar Astronomical Observatory and through Connaught place, New Delhi's main shopping centre.

Juma Mosque

Azerbaijan architectonic monument. It was built in 1606 by scientist and architect Sheikh Bahaddin. People call it the mosque of Shakh Abbas. The monument, built of burn't red bricks, consists of the mosque and two minarets in front of it (the form of the minarets has changed after repair works in XIXth century). The mosque had a madrasa which was demolished in the middle of XXth century.The cube-form mosque is covered with a large diameter cupola (17 m), which was too big for it's epoch.

The large volume arched steps which open outwards and the whole construction attracts our attention for it's architectonoc decisions. The area of the prayers saloon and the height of the vaults mark the mosque out. The wooden shabaka of the pulpit have carved ornament and represent unique example of shabaka craft.
In The madrasa of the mosque was the place, where M.Sh.Vaseh for along time teached calligrathy and also teached M.F.Akhundov a nastalig writing. A branch of Azerbaijan State Arts Museum has functioned in this mosque since 1967.

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Chandini Chowk Across the street from the Red Fort lies Chandni Chowk, an area completely dedicated to shopping, trading and eating. While the Red Fort offers tranquillity, Chandni Chowk is its opposite. It is an enormous area, packed with all sorts of shops, bazaars, people of all kinds. The main street offers all kinds of shops, and it overflows with all kinds of traffic. But you can also dive into the alleys that branch off on all sides. Wherever you go, it bustles, boils, is full of sounds and smells, in one word: it is exciting!

Red Fort - Agra

Mughal palace architecture reached its peak with the construction of the Red Fort at Agra. Built over many centuries under different regimes, it is the product of many different architects who each worked on only a small portion of the whole. To our eyes, this gives the Red Fort a rather eclectic feel that is unified only by the ubiquitious red sandstone that gives the fortress its name. The residential and defensive portions of the fortress can be described separately. The outer walls, built during Akbar's time, are penetrated by two gates, called the Amar Singh and the Delhi gate respectively. The Delhi gate, to the west, was originally the main entrance although the southern gate, the Amar Singh, is used today. Both gates are sheathed in red sandstone and consist of an enormous facade flanked by twin towers. Entry is on the diagonal, and to foil invaders, visitors were originally forced to negotiate several right-angled turns before reaching the gate.

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Qutab Minar

Qutb-u'd-Din Aibak laid the foundation of Qutab Minar in AD 1199. The minar was said to have been built to celebrate the victory of Mohammed Ghori, the invader from Afghanistan, over the Rajputs in 1192. He raised the first storey, to which were added three more storeys by his successor and son-in-law, Shamsu'd-Din IItutmish (AD 1211-36). All the storeys are surrounded by a projected balcony encircling the Minar and supported by stone brackets, which are decorated with honeycomb design, more conspicuously in the first storey. The mosque was constructed from the spoils of 27 demolished Hindu temples whose figures of gods and goddesses were defaced.

An iron pillar stands in the courtyard in front of the mosque . The pillar, which was built during the Gupta Empire (a Hindu empire in India from 320 to about 335AD), may be a tribute to Lord Vishnu. It is made of such pure iron that it has never rusted. According to legend, anyone who can encircle the pillar by standing with their back to the pillar and clasping their hands together will have his wish granted. Unfortunately, the pillar is now surrounded by a fence and we were not able to test our ability to encircle the pillar.

Jantar Mantar

Jantar Mantar is the most famous and elaborate observatory of its time. It was constructed in the year 1724 A.D. by Sawai Jai Singh II, even before the city of Jaipur was built, and has been described as the most surrealistic and logical landscape instone. It was built to measure the local time, the sun's declination, altitude, the declination of stars, planets and to determine eclipses.

A passionate hobby of the king in the field of Astronomy, numerology, insighted him to execute this observatory and with the help of skilled labourers, they managed to create a collection of complex astronomical instruments chiselled out of stone and most of which continues to provide accurate information to this day. The most striking instrument is the Brihat Samrat yantra Sundial, an imposing yellow edifice to the far right of the observatory complex which has a 27m high gnomon arm set at an angle of 27degree.The shadow this casts moves up to 4m in an hour, and aids in the calculation of local and meridian pass time and various attributes of the heavenly bodies, including declination the angular distance of a heavenly body from the celestial equator and altitude. This highlight of the observatory has made it a centre of attraction for the tourist visiting Jaipur.

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