Shimla

Shimla began as a hamlet of Shyamala Devi, was picked up by British officers in the 1820s for its deodar shade, and by 1864 had become the summer capital of the Raj, a place where a fifth of humanity was governed from a ridge. That legacy sits everywhere. The Viceregal Lodge of 1888, all grey stone turrets and Burma teak, now houses the Indian Institute of Advanced Study and hosts the room where the 1945 Simla Conference met.

Christ Church of 1857 closes the eastern end of the Ridge with its yellow facade and stained glass, while the Gaiety Theatre of 1887 still stages plays. A Shimla day starts cold and clear: coffee at the Indian Coffee House on the Mall, then the steep pull or a taxi to Jakhu Temple at 2,455 m, where a 108-ft orange Hanuman watches over a monkey army and a wall of Himalayan snow beyond Narkanda. Afternoons drift through Lakkar Bazaar for wooden toys, past Scandal Point and the Town Hall, to Mashobra or Naldehra's old golf course.

Cars are banned from the core, so the town moves at walking pace. Kufri is the snow-play stop in winter; Hatu Peak above Narkanda gives the big views; and the Kalka–Shimla railway, opened in 1903 and inscribed by UNESCO in 2008, twists through 102 tunnels and more than 800 bridges to get you here in five unhurried hours.