Agra beyond the Taj: Agra Fort, Mehtab Bagh and Fatehpur Sikri

After the Taj Mahal, the most rewarding places in and around Agra are Agra Fort, a short drive upriver, and Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar's abandoned capital about 40 kilometers to the west. Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Mehtab Bagh, a garden across the river from the Taj, is the place to see the tomb at sunset. All of them are open from sunrise to sunset every day, including Friday, when the Taj itself is closed.

Fees below are from the official ticketing page for Agra monuments, checked in November 2026.

Agra Fort

Agra Fort was the main seat of the Mughal emperors in Agra. Akbar rebuilt it in red sandstone from 1565 as a walled city on the river, and his grandson Shah Jahan later replaced several of the inner buildings with white marble palaces. It is about two and a half kilometers from the Taj Mahal and was inscribed by UNESCO in 1983, the same year as the Taj.

You enter through the Amar Singh Gate on the south side. The open part of the fort is only a section of the whole, since much of it is still used by the Indian Army. What you can see includes:

• The Diwan-i-Am, the hall of public audience, with its long rows of cusped arches.
• The Diwan-i-Khas, the hall of private audience.
• The Khas Mahal and the white marble pavilions overlooking the river.
• The Musamman Burj, the octagonal tower where Shah Jahan is said to have spent his last years under house arrest, looking toward the Taj.
• The Jahangiri Mahal, an earlier palace in red sandstone that mixes Mughal and Hindu building traditions.

Allow about two hours. The fort has much more shade than the Taj, so it works well in the middle of the day.

Mehtab Bagh

Mehtab Bagh, the "moonlight garden," lies on the north bank of the Yamuna, directly opposite the Taj Mahal. It was laid out as one of the Mughal riverside gardens of Agra and lined up with the Taj on the same axis. Excavations in the 1990s found the remains of a large octagonal pool in which the tomb would have been reflected.

Today it is a quiet, simple garden with a clear view of the back of the Taj across the river. It is the best-known place to watch the sun set behind the tomb. It closes at sunset, so arrive at least an hour beforehand to have time to walk to the riverbank.

The view is good in the early morning too, and on Fridays it is the only way to see the Taj from up close.

Mehtab Bagh is about 15 to 20 minutes by road from the Taj's east gate, since the route crosses the river by a bridge upstream.

Fatehpur Sikri

Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri as his new capital from about 1571, on a ridge near the village of Sikri, where the Sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chishti lived. The saint is said to have predicted the birth of Akbar's son, the future emperor Jahangir. The court moved there, and then left again within about fifteen years. The reasons are still discussed, and water shortage and changing military priorities are the usual explanations. The city was preserved largely as it was built, and was inscribed by UNESCO in 1986.

The site has two parts. The palace complex, which needs a ticket, includes the Diwan-i-Am, the Diwan-i-Khas with its single carved central pillar, the five-story Panch Mahal, and the palaces built for Akbar's queens. Next to it, the Jama Masjid is a working mosque with no entry fee. Its courtyard holds the white marble tomb of Salim Chishti, with fine marble screens, and it is entered through the huge Buland Darwaza gateway.

Allow two to three hours. It is about an hour by road from Agra, and many people combine it with the drive to Jaipur or back toward Delhi. Expect to be approached by unofficial guides and sellers at the mosque; a polite, firm no works.

Itimad-ud-Daulah

Often called the "Baby Taj," this smaller tomb on the east bank of the Yamuna was built in the 1620s by the empress Nur Jahan for her father, Mirza Ghiyas Beg, who held the title Itimad-ud-Daulah. It is faced in white marble and covered in inlaid stone patterns, and is one of the first Mughal buildings to use inlay on this scale, a generation before the Taj. It is small, quiet and much less visited. Fees are ₹30 for Indian, SAARC and BIMSTEC visitors and ₹310 for foreign visitors.

It sits on the same side of the river as Mehtab Bagh, so the two fit together into a late-afternoon outing.

Akbar's Tomb, Sikandra

The tomb of the emperor Akbar is at Sikandra, on the Delhi road about ten kilometers from central Agra. It is a large, unusual building in red sandstone and white marble, set in a big garden where deer and monkeys roam. If you drive from Delhi, you pass close to it. Fees are the same as for Itimad-ud-Daulah.

Planning the rest of Agra

A few combinations work well:

• One full day: Taj Mahal at sunrise, Agra Fort late morning, Itimad-ud-Daulah after lunch, Mehtab Bagh for sunset.
• A Friday: Agra Fort in the morning, Fatehpur Sikri in the afternoon, Mehtab Bagh if you are back before sunset.
• On the road to Jaipur: leave Agra after breakfast and spend two or three hours at Fatehpur Sikri on the way.

Foreign visitors pay a little less at Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri on the same day as a Taj visit, according to the official fee table. Keep your Taj ticket with you and show it at the counter.

Food and markets

Agra is known for petha, a translucent sweet made from ash gourd, sold in many flavors around the city. The lanes of Kinari Bazaar near the Jama Masjid in the old city are crowded and lively. Marble inlay is the city's best-known craft, and you will be offered workshop visits. Some are genuine workshops and some are showrooms that pay commissions to drivers and guides. Take your time, compare prices, and don't feel obliged to buy.