One night is the standard and two is better. The Taj needs to be entered at opening - through the east gate, before the queues and while the marble is still cold - and that means sleeping here rather than driving in from Delhi. An afternoon covers the fort, and a second morning gets Fatehpur Sikri properly instead of as a roadside stop.

A handful of hotels look directly at the Taj from their rooms or their roof. The rest are twenty minutes away and cost a third as much. Whether the view is worth it depends entirely on how many nights you have; for a single night we usually say yes.

Do not let the marble-inlay workshops eat the afternoon. There is one worth an hour and a dozen that exist for commissions, and our chauffeurs are on salary rather than a cut precisely so nobody steers you into the wrong one.