What can I say, but WOW the Taj Mahal is simply breathtaking, even on my second visit. Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, built this white marble mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz. Mumtaz was special because she was the first of his wives to bear children for him. She passed away while giving birth to their 14th child. Shah Jahan was inconsolable and in 1631 he commissioned for the Taj Mahal to be constructed to serve as a place for her marble tomb. The Taj Mahal is filled with history. Over the next 22 years, the Taj Mahal  was built. It is symmetrically designed, even the placement of Mumtaz’s tomb inside the Taj Mahal is carefully designed so that it is in the center of the entrance to the main outlying building, through the first entryway in which one gets their very first glimpse of this magnificent structure.

The grounds of the Taj Mahal is filled with gardens, water fountains and outlying buildings. Everything is precisely symmetrical. When India was faced with threats of air attacks from other countries in the past, and during the India-Pakistan wars, the Taj Mahal was covered with scaffolding and draped with burlap, as to not shine in the moonlight and make the structure vulnerable to attacks. It is another UNESCO World Heritage Site that we were so fortunate to see while Dylan was here.