The Deserted City of Fatehpur Sikri is a World Heritage site, and we can see why. It’s an amazing walled city, built between 1571 and 1585, by Emperor Akbar, who visited the area, liked it so much that he bought up the land and built himself a tad small pad…..about 3 miles long, 2 miles wide, one palace for himself, one each for his 3 wives, one a Hindu, one a Muslim and the last a Christian, all interlinking for conjugal purposes and communal living. However, soon after moving in, the Emperor inconsiderately died, and the city was deserted by the wives after finding the area suffered from water shortages and the bathing pools dried up!


The individual palaces are ornate, every stone pillar and balcony is carved with animals and flowers, interlinked rooms were large and cool and would have been kept warm in winter by thick rugs and wall hangings.

  • One piece of stone is hand cut, no machinery used.
  • Ornate balconies

Emperor Akbar also built a huge mosque, said to be one of the most ornate in India, but as we had a long journey ahead, we skipped the visit to the mosque and headed on to Ranthambore national park, where tigers await us, hopefully!


Our very long car journey from Agra to Ranthambore took 6 hours, no motorways here, just pot holed roads, through busy townships heaving with people and animals. The landscape changed from flat dry land to flat green fields with the odd mountain thrown in.

  • Watch that cow!!

Along the way, we stopped to watch women and children collecting cow pats, they form it into larger circles of dung, dry them out and build huts with them, waterproofing them with reeds and plastic fertiliser bags.

We eventually arrived in time for sunset, dinner and a 5am alarm call for our safari trip to find Indian tigers, excited??? Yes, we are!!

Colour and chaos.