Today, Saturday, is actually a pleasant transition into this city of 14 million for two reasons: First, there are few of the rush-hour traffic jams by which the city times its workweek; second, you have the pleasure of watching local families sightseeing, riding motorcycles (the women sitting sidesaddle with an improbable elegance), or simply lounging in the local parks. You'll also see some of Delhi's thousands of monkeys (pictured bottom right) scampering thourgh the foliage. Traveling through India means time traveling as well; each of the cities you'll visit on this trip has been shaped by the successive dynasties that have ruled this country. Today's tour will introduce you to three of the most significant: the Delhi Sultanate, a Turkestan dynasty whose empire lasted from 1206 through 1526; the Moguls, that fantastically bejeweled bunch who ruled from 1556 through the early eighteenth century; and the British, whose capitulation in 1947, after nearly a century of rule, heralded the death of Pax Britannica and the birth of modern India.

Delhi is a tale of two cities: There is Old Delhi, the Mogul capital established in 1638 by Shah Jahan (you'll be encountering him again as your trip continues), and, to the south, New Delhi, constructed by the British between 1911 and 1931. The two are starkly different in both architecture and layout: The former is a tangle of narrow streets over which hang snarls of electrical wires; the latter is lovely and genteel, its wide streets punctuated with small parks landscaped in exuberant hues. Your first stop, in South Delhi, is the Qutb Minar, begun in 1198 by Delhi's first Islamic ruler, Qutbuddin Aibak, to commemorate his defeat of the Hindu kings. Qutbuddin, who came from Turkestan, died without seeing the completion of the Minar, a 235-foot, five-tier tower; he also had a mosque built adjacent to the column, now mostly ruins. Note the mosque's elaborately carved pillars, which were repurposed from the Jain and Hindu temples that once stood on the site. As you'll see again, many Hindu temples were destroyed by the conquering Muslims—their carvings violated Islam's ban on portraying living creatures. Heads were chipped away, faces rubbed off. But this desecration, oddly, has the effect of heightening the lush sensuality of some of the column's carvings: Women, their bodies sinuous, melt into their male companions, their rounded hips fitting into the curves of their partner's waist as neatly as puzzle pieces. There's much original work to admire in Qutbuddin's mosque, as well, with its six ruined archways so finely and intricately carved from red stone that they appear to be hewn from soft sandalwood.

Next is Humayun's Tomb, about a half-hour drive away and the city's first Mogul building. Built in eight years starting in 1562, it is, as my guide said, "a monument to love," since it was commissioned by the widow of Emperor Humayun (1508–56) in tribute to her husband. In this story of marital devotion and in the complex's architecture are the origins of that most famous temple to uxoriousness, the Taj Mahal, built by Humayun's great-grandson the Shah Jahan.