The most beautiful building in the world

Guess where?

I was tiring of writing several blog postings in a row, so I turned to Erik for inspiration. "How do I start writing about the amazing Taj Mahal?" I asked. "You could say that it's a marble building with lots of details," he offered.

The most intricate details in marble

Which is about it really. Probably the millions of visitors it attracts every year are expecting something befitting a grander description, and they are surely not disappointed. We weren't. In fact we loved it so much that we went twice (which means paying twice!). Once at sunset, and once for the sunrise. 

Sunrise behind the Taj Mahal

The Taj, a colossal tribute to love (and yes, a marble building with lots of details), stands on a kind of enormous platform. So when you first come through the gates, you see the majestic, shimmering white Taj Mahal against nothing but a backdrop of clear blue sky. And kind of like the Manhattan skyline, you've seen it so many times in films that it feels familiar.  

Just as you expect

My words can't adequately describe the beauty of the building. But hopefully you can see from Erik's pictures. It felt like an honour to be there, just staring at it and soaking it all in. As we watched the sun set over the Taj Mahal in the evening, it was hard to turn our backs on the building, and not take that one final picture. 

Looking back one more time

(How many hundreds of thousands of pictures are taken daily of that building, I wondered?)

 

To make it easier, we decided to go back the next morning for sunrise. It was  sublime. We were close to the front of the line at gate-opening time. Erik knew exactly the photos he wanted to shoot. So he ran to get those precious few shots of the Taj Mahal at sunrise, with no no other people in the picture. 

No-one else in the frame

It felt like we had the most beautiful, and arguably the most romantic, building in the world to ourselves.  At least for a moment.