First day's sites...

The driver, a Punjabi man with very good English and knowledgeable about best routes, multi-lane/directional driving took me first to the Lashmi Narayan Temple built in the 1930's and inaugurated by Gandhi.  There is a good Wiki article about it.

 

We then drove to Raj Path, the road at the end of which is the Presidential Palace, flanked by the Prime Minister's building on one side and the Parliament on the other.  These buildings are beautiful, built by the British in the early 20th century.  There is much security, with no access to any of the buildings, soldiers and police barricades blocking every entrance.  Sadly, the air was so bad that the photographs don't do the architecture justice.

 

 

 

At the other end of Raj Path is the India Gate monument.  It is like our Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Viet Nam wall, dedicated to the Indian soldiers who fought and died in WWI and a later conflict with Afghanistan.  Names of the fallen are inscribed in the stone.  It was built in the 1920's and seemed very popular.  As everywhere, hawkers are asking tourists to buy things....toys, smoking apparata, food, or give money. 

 



 

After this we went to Gandhi's memorial, the house where he was staying and the garden where he was shot.  The place is nice with a history lesson about British rule and the uprising of 1857 the dominant theme on many of the panels surrounding the garden.  Many of his quotes and a biography are on display around the house and garden.

 

 

The Indira Gandhi memorial is very near Gandhiji's, so we stopped by there, as well.  Leaving, I asked my driver, who is Sikh, about her assassination.  It was carried out by Sikh bodyguards after she had attacked the Golden Temple at Amritsar, a holy Sikh temple.  He said her attack on the temple was politically motivated.  I said, "Wow, a very violent country."  He said, "Yes."  Then I felt like an idiot remembering what my passport said.

 

Last stop was the tomb of Safdarjung, built in the 1750's.  Some call it the last flicker in the lamp of Mughal architecture.  Made of red sandstone (from a previously dismantled tomb) and marble, the mausoleum is in the center of a multi-acre garden. I thought it was beautiful, but many have called it out of proportion, and made of poor quality material.  There is more detail here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Safdarjung.

 

 

 



 

That was it for Friday.  I'll see more Mughal architecture today, a famous mosque, and a few other things.  I don't know if we are heading to Agra this afternoon, or tomorrow.  I was too jet lagged when we were discussing logistics.