Day 3: Very Old Delhi

Great and Ploy delivering, well, a great lecture about the Tughlaqabad, Delhi's 4th city. We are audience to a staggering backdrop of 30 m cyclopean ramparts, dilapidated triumphal archways, and the remains of a city that hosted almost 1,000,000 soldiers alone, making it one of the largest cities in the world at the time. The brief time. Despite its scale and might, the city barely survived 100 years.


While 8 of our party were bicycling through Lutyen's (The Raj's New Delhi), the remaining 16 went to Jantar Mantar, a complex of architectural-astrological devices. You could not find a more spectacular instance of 'form follows function,' with such fantastic forms, anywhere else, least of all in the early 18th century.
Finally, we concluded the day in Delhi's 2nd city (11th century), Mehrauli. We began a magical walk at Qutub Minar and its surrounding 12th century complex (the first instance of Islamic architecture in India), then proceeded through an 'archeological park' that consisted of intermittent forest, lovely swathes of green park space and picturesquely situated Mughal and pre Mughal ruins that would have made Humphrey Repton, Capability Brown, and Claude Lorrain swoon.