Humayun's Tomb

Humayun died in 1556 after falling down his library stairs; the tomb his widow commissioned nearly a decade later invented a building type. A high plinth, a symmetrical red sandstone mass banded in white marble, a double dome, and around it a walled charbagh divided by water channels into thirty-six squares. Nothing quite like it had been built in India before, and almost everything monumental the Mughals built afterwards is a variation on it.

For a long time it was a ruin with a village inside it, its channels dry and its garden planted over. A twenty-year restoration by the Archaeological Survey of India and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture stripped a million kilograms of concrete off the roof, re-laid the paving, and got the water running again. The result is the rare heritage site that is better now than it was a generation ago — and the surrounding necropolis, from Isa Khan's octagonal tomb to the Barber's Tomb, rewards an unhurried hour.

JLN Stadium, Violet Line, is the nearest station, about a kilometre and a half from the gate.

A ticketed car park sits at the main entrance on Mathura Road.

No food inside the tomb complex; a small café operates at the visitor centre near the gate, and Nizamuddin's kitchens are a short auto ride away.

Combine with Sunder Nursery and Nizamuddin in one afternoon; the three sit within a kilometre of each other.