Get The Road To Heaven

If you have enough time, visit the major places of interest of this fascinating and contradictory city, the main cultural and intellectual center of the country: colonial architecture, luxurious modern buildings, shopping centers coexist with slums, traffic jams, smog.

Flight to the ancient Patna, the current capital of Bihar, and in the afternoon visit of Takht Har Mandir Sahib, birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh, tenth master of the Sikhs: white marble, copulas and sacred texts for a fascinating and highly veined place.

Move to Rajgir where the Buddha stayed for a dozen years, today a quiet village of the scenic temple and monastery complex and an imposing Jain and Buddhist pilgrimage area. Continue to Nalanda, formerly the site of one of the largest universities in the world and now a significant center of Buddhist worship. The ruins of the Great Stupa are imposing with decorations, cells, stairwells, terraces. Accommodation in the hotel in Bodhgaya.

Visit Bodhgaya, one of the 4 holiest places of Buddhism in the world because here the master reached enlightenment. Visit the Vajrasana, the Mahabodhi temple, with the ficus piñata that seems to derive from the one under which the Buddha sat meditating, and the Animesh Lochan, another sacred place: the culminating moment and the ceremony of lighted candles and the meeting with the monks of the Mahabodhi Society.

Transfer to Varanasi and free time.

In the light of dawn in a boat, gliding slowly on the mystical Ganges. In the background, the city awakens to the sound of the flutes of the temple of Shiva, and later, among sacred cows and shops, temples and crowded alleys, visit the old part of Varanasi. In the afternoon Sarnath, a historic place of Buddhist worship, and in the evening the evocative "Aarti" ceremony, the collective prayer that unfolds in the flickering light of the candles in the temples, on the revered waters of the Ganges River, on the "Ghats", the steps on the banks.

Excursion to Prayagraj and visit of Sangam - large expanse of sand where the waters of three sacred rivers meet, Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati - of the Nehru family residence now a museum, of Swaraj Bhawan, where Indira Gandhi was born. Return to Varanasi.

Flight to Delhi, free time available to roam around.

Short visit to the capital of India, with the Chandni Chowk market, the Jama Masjid mosque, the Raj Ghat, Humayun's tomb. Transfer by Shatabdi Express train to Amritsar, the sacred city of the Sikhs.

Morning ceremony at the suggestive Orao temple: here the spirituality and energy are almost tangible, enhanced by the quiet and strengthened by the proverbial sense of hospitality of the Sikhs. Arches, minarets, sanctuaries, domes, decorations, texts, sacred items, marbles, gold and precious stones for a place of pure beauty and a very special atmosphere. Followed by Jallianwala Bagh park, which commemorates a crucial episode in the Indian struggle for independence and the terrifying massacre caused by British troops, the Durgiana Temple and the changing of the guard at the Wagah Border, the Indo-Pakistani border.

Breakfast and flight to Delhi connecting flight to onward destination.