Luxury India Tour with Royal Train Experience

Your week of royal travel begins at Indira Gandhi International Airport, where your chauffeur waits outside the arrivals hall holding a sign with your name. He takes charge of the luggage while you settle into a cool air-conditioned sedan with bottled water and a chilled towel ready on the back seat. The drive into the city takes forty-five minutes to an hour depending on traffic. Our usual choice for this first night is The Oberoi, New Delhi, or The Leela Palace, subject to availability, both well placed near the diplomatic enclave. A member of our team meets you in the lobby with your train documents, a cabin allocation letter and a short briefing on what to pack in a soft overnight bag.

Luggage space on the train is limited, so we suggest one medium suitcase per person and a small day bag for the excursions. Larger cases can stay with our office in Delhi and be returned to you on the final morning. If your flight lands early, a quiet afternoon in the hotel garden or spa is the best preparation for the days ahead. For dinner, the hotel restaurants are a safe and polished choice, though Indian Accent at The Lodhi is a fine option for contemporary Indian tasting menus if you prefer to step out. Your chauffeur remains on call for any evening transfer. Get a good night's sleep, because tomorrow ends with a train departure. Overnight stay in Delhi.

The morning is kept gentle so you board the train fresh. After breakfast your driver and a local guide take you to Humayun's Tomb, the garden tomb built for the second Mughal emperor in the sixteenth century, whose double dome and charbagh layout later shaped the Taj Mahal. Next door, Sunder Nursery has been restored into a ninety-acre park with smaller Mughal tombs, a lotus pond and shady lawns, ideal for a slow walk. From there it is a short drive along Rajpath, now called Kartavya Path, past India Gate and the grand government buildings designed by Lutyens and Baker. Return to the hotel for a light lunch and to collect your luggage.

In the late afternoon your chauffeur drives you to Safdarjung railway station, where the train staff greet each guest with a marigold garland, a tilak on the forehead and a welcome drink on a red carpet. Your cabin attendant shows you to your saloon, explains the controls for air conditioning and hot water, and unpacks if you wish. The train pulls out in the early evening. Dinner is served in one of the two restaurant cars, with a choice of Indian and Continental dishes, and the bar lounge is a fine spot to meet fellow travellers over a gin and tonic. The rhythm of the rails does the rest. Overnight stay in your cabin on board, travelling to Jaipur.

The train reaches Jaipur shortly after breakfast, and the platform is lined with a welcome party of dancers and decorated elephants on some departures. Air-conditioned coaches carry the guests up to Amber Fort, where the climb through the Suraj Pol and Jaleb Chowk leads to the painted Ganesh Pol gateway. Inside, your guide points out the Diwan-i-Aam with its double row of carved columns and the Sheesh Mahal, where a single candle once lit a whole ceiling studded with convex mirror pieces. On the drive back down, the coaches pause at Jal Mahal, the water palace that seems to float on Man Sagar Lake, for photographs from the roadside promenade.

Lunch is served at a heritage hotel in the city. In the afternoon the tour moves to the City Palace, still home to the former royal family, and the Jantar Mantar observatory next door, where the Samrat Yantra sundial casts a shadow that moves about six centimetres a minute. Your guide explains how Sawai Jai Singh II built these instruments in stone in the early eighteenth century to correct Persian astronomical tables. A short stop for photographs at the pink facade of the Hawa Mahal follows, and there is usually time for a little shopping for gems or block-printed textiles before returning to the train for dinner. Overnight stay in your cabin on board, travelling to Sawai Madhopur.

An early wake-up call with tea and biscuits delivered to your cabin is worth it today. The train halts at Sawai Madhopur, and open canters carry guests into Ranthambore National Park for a morning safari as the park gates open, around half past six in winter. The forest is a dry deciduous mix of dhok trees, banyan and grassland, broken by lakes such as Padam Talao and Rajbagh Talao, where tigers sometimes come down to drink. A naturalist reads pugmarks on the track and listens for alarm calls from spotted deer and langur monkeys. Even without a tiger, sightings of sambar, crocodiles, painted storks and jungle cats are common in these three hours.

Above the forest rises the ruined Ranthambore Fort, one of the hill forts of Rajasthan listed by UNESCO, and its walls make a dramatic backdrop to the lakes. After the safari the canters return to the station, and brunch is waiting on board as the train moves on. The afternoon is free to relax in your cabin, read in the lounge car or book a massage in the spa coach. Please note that safari zones are allocated by the forest department by lottery and the park is usually closed for a few months during the monsoon, which is why royal train departures with Ranthambore run between autumn and spring. Overnight stay in your cabin on board, travelling to Udaipur.

Udaipur is the softest stop on the route, a city of white palaces reflected in green water and ringed by the Aravalli hills. Morning coaches take you to the City Palace of Udaipur, a complex built over four centuries by successive Maharanas of Mewar on the eastern shore of Lake Pichola. Your guide leads you through Mor Chowk with its peacocks in glass mosaic, the Badi Mahal garden courtyard on the top of a natural hill, and the Zenana Mahal with its painted chambers. The views from the upper balconies take in the Lake Palace hotel, Jag Mandir island and the ghats along the far shore, where women still wash clothes in the morning.

After lunch at a lakeside hotel, a motor launch takes the group out on Lake Pichola. The boat circles the Lake Palace and lands at Jag Mandir, the island palace where the young Prince Khurram, later Shah Jahan, sheltered while in rebellion against his father. Its stone elephants guarding the jetty make a favourite photograph. Late afternoon is free for the old city lanes around the Jagdish Temple, where shops sell miniature paintings on silk and paper, silver jewellery and handmade leather notebooks. The coaches gather everyone in time for dinner on board as the train heads west. Overnight stay in your cabin on board, travelling to Jodhpur.

The train pulls into Jodhpur under a sky that turns from pink to hard blue, and the first sight from the platform is Mehrangarh Fort, rising sheer from a rock some four hundred feet above the town. Coaches drive up to the fort, where an elevator saves the climb. Inside, the museum is one of the best kept in India, with a gallery of elephant howdahs in silver and gilt, palanquins, and an armoury of jewelled daggers and swords. Your guide takes you through the Phool Mahal, the hall of flowers with gold leaf ceilings, and the Sheesh Mahal of the Rathore rulers, then to the ramparts where old cannons look over the blue painted houses of Brahmpuri.
Lunch today is a highlight. On most departures guests are taken to a palace hotel such as Umaid Bhawan Palace, still partly lived in by the former royal family, for a meal in grand art deco surroundings. Afterwards the coaches pause at Jaswant Thada, a white marble cenotaph built for Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, before heading for the Sardar Market at the foot of the clock tower. Here the stalls are piled with spices, bandhani tie-dyed scarves and brass, and your guide can point you to a reliable spice shop. Back on board, the train begins its long run east toward Agra. Overnight stay in your cabin on board, travelling to Agra.

Agra is the final city and the one many guests have waited all week to see. Coaches leave the station after an early breakfast for the Taj Mahal, reaching the gates while the light is still soft. Your guide explains the symmetry that makes the tomb look perfect from every side, the calligraphy that appears to stay the same size as it climbs the arch, and the pietra dura inlay of carnelian, lapis and jade on the cenotaphs inside. Please note the Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays for prayers, so royal train timetables never schedule Agra on a Friday. Allow time to sit on the marble benches before turning back.
After lunch at a hotel near the Taj, the tour continues to Agra Fort, the red sandstone citadel of Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Inside, the Musamman Burj is the octagonal tower where Shah Jahan spent his last years under house arrest, gazing down the Yamuna toward the tomb of his wife. The Diwan-i-Khas and Khas Mahal hold some of the finest marble work outside the Taj itself. In the evening the train staff host a farewell dinner on board, often with a short cultural programme, and you can spend your last night in the lounge car swapping stories with friends made along the way. Overnight stay in your cabin on board, travelling to Delhi.

Breakfast is served on board as the train makes its final approach to Delhi, arriving at Safdarjung station in the early morning. Your attendant helps bring the luggage down to the platform, where your chauffeur from Heritage India Private Tours is waiting, along with any suitcases you left with our Delhi office at the start of the week. It is worth checking your cabin carefully before stepping off, as chargers and reading glasses are the items most often left behind. Our team member will also ask how the week went, because your feedback helps us advise future guests on the best train dates and cabin types.

If your international flight leaves late at night, we can arrange a day room at an airport hotel in Aerocity so you can shower and rest, or keep the car for a few more hours of sightseeing. Popular choices for a last morning are the Lodhi Garden, with its fifteenth-century tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi rulers, or a final round of shopping at Khan Market for books, tea and linen. When the time comes, your chauffeur drives you to Indira Gandhi International Airport and helps with the bags as far as the terminal entrance. That completes your royal train week across northern India, with Heritage India Private Tours wishing you a safe flight home.