Wednesday, January 28, 2009

More from Agra

After the Taj Mahal, we visited Agra's other major attraction, the Agra Fort. Building on the fort commenced in 1565 under the emperor Akbar. Significant expansion took place under Shah Jahan. (Akbar liked to use locally available red sandstone - Shah Jahan preferred to import costlier white marble, so you can date the different portions of the fort readily). At the time it was built, Agra was the capital of the Mughal Empire, and the fort served both as military fortification and palace for the emperor's family. Over the centuries the fort has been looted extensively - imagine how splendid it must have been in its heyday!
After the fort, we took a little spin in a horse drawn carriage, and strolled around a local park where the slide had the most amazing view - then it was on to Agra's dark, dirty and depressing rail station, where we had a prolonged wait for our train to Jaipur....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A treat as always to visit you all on your travels. Ashwin and Priya are just radiating joy, and Leann, you look very mellow in that carriage! In the previous post the picture of Ashwin and Priya running is priceless.

Anonymous said...

Whoops, forgot to sign that comment! Mary Jo!

kids in chennai said...

I felt pretty mellow - as you know it's not often we moms get a chance to kick back and relax, so make the most of it, right!
leann