Month: January 2018

Taj Mahal: The World’s Best Reason to Travel

  In the early 2000s the world set out to determine the New7Wonders of the World. Of 200 monuments, the seven finalists were determined as follows: Chichen Itza, Christ the Redeemer, Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Petra, Taj Mahal, and the Colosseum. I’ve had the great fortune to visit a handful of these new world wonders – the Colosseum (2007), Great Wall of China (2012), Machu Picchu (2016) and the Taj Mahal last March. And if you’re asking me, when it comes to monuments and attractions, the Taj Mahal is the world’s best reason to travel. Put otherwise, if you’re going to plan a trip around a bucket list-worthy place, this is it. What makes the Taj Mahal so remarkable? It’s hard to grasp that a building could be described as beautiful. Architecture can be handsome, inspiring or jaw-dropping but somehow the Taj Mahal is delicate, intricate, soft, feminine.  What you can not appreciate until you visit in-person, is the way the marble changes colour depending on the position of the sun, the delicacy of …