Gwalior

The rock of Gwalior, Gopachal, has been fortified since at least the 6th century, when legend says a chieftain named Suraj Sen was cured of leprosy by the sage Gwalipa and named the fort for him. Every power that mattered in north India held it in turn: the Kachchhapaghatas, Tomars, Delhi Sultans, Mughals, Marathas and finally the British, who took it during the 1857 uprising. The approach from the Urwahi side passes rock-cut Jain tirthankaras up to 17 metres tall, carved in the 15th century and defaced under Babur; the eastern road climbs through a chain of gateways to the Man Mandir, the palace of Raja Man Singh Tomar with its blue, yellow and green tilework of ducks and elephants.

Behind it lie the twin Sas-Bahu temples, 11th-century towers of miniature spires, and the Teli ka Mandir, a 9th-century temple with a wagon-vault roof unlike anything else in the north. The small Chaturbhuj Temple beside the gate carries a 9th-century inscription with one of the oldest known written zeros. Down in the city, the Scindias' Jai Vilas Palace has a Durbar Hall hung with two 3.5-tonne chandeliers and a silver toy train that carried brandy around the dining table.

Tansen, Akbar's greatest musician, is buried beside his Sufi master Ghaus Mohammed, and the December Tansen Samaroh brings singers to perform beside his tomb. A good day means a morning on the fort, a bedai and kachori lunch in the old bazaars, and a slow evening in the Gujari Mahal museum.