On September, 2008, we made our first trip on India. It actually was our first time in the Asian continent, and we choosed the formula of a customized program fully supported by a travel agency. We don't use to do that, but early contacts with the agency Enchanting India was pretty encouraging, so we decided to go ahead. The program was for three weeks, and the itinerary was Delhi-Mandawa-Samode (Jaipur)-Barathpur (Agra)-Delhi-Rishikesh (Haridwar)-Corbett NP-Almora-Delhi. The first step was, therefore, a two-nights stay at Delhi, and the present article deals with these intensive 48 hours we spent there.

We knew that going to India would not be like going to any other place in the World, so that we made some especial preparation. We mean not only learning about the history of the places that one is going to see, but mainly understanding the mind of an old civilisation that holds the oldest roots of the European culture. We read, therefore, some about the Hindu mind, philosophy and spirituality, and we found there some of the deepest and beautiest concepts we have ever learned. Just realising the Hindu concept of the "atman", which is similar but not at all identical to our concept of "soul", deserves some hours of quiet reading for enjoying it. Going to India is not just travelling in space and time, but also making a personal, inner travel.

The word that may better describe our feelings after this first step of our travel is "surprise". People coming back from India uses to speak about the beauty of Taj Mahal, the funerary ceremonies on the Ganga river at Varanasi, or the luxury of maharaja's palaces at Rajasthan, but they don't use to say very much about the city capital of the country. And we must say, however, that Delhi is truly spectacular, and that we would have been happy to spend there twice the time we actually spent. Stating the history of one of the oldest cities in the World is not the objective of our article, but just to show people thinking about a first visit to India that Delhi deserves no less than four days of quiet visit. Holding more than 2,000 officially recognised historical buildings and two World Heritage Sites (Qutb Minar and Humayun's Tomb complexes), as well as the contrast of the Old Delhi districts with places like the Rajpath, a city landscape comparable with the Washington's Mall or the Champs Eliseés Avenue, Delhi accounts sincerely among the best cities we have ever seen. And we would like to add that making the visit with the excellent support of people from Enchanting India was the best choice we could made, we thank them very much for it.

It's difficult to say what was the best of our visit to Delhi. We would, anyway, point-out four things: the Architect's tomb at the Humayun's tomb complex; the tomb of Imam Zamin, at Qutb Minar; the Raj Ghat, a splendid garden that holds the grave of Mahatma Gandhi; and the Rajpath in New Delhi, not only for its monuments, but for the landscape itself. But Delhi was just an introduction for many more surprises. Next one, Mandawa. It's coming.