Agra hotel

We spent one night in Agra.  According to everything I read, I could only find one hotel that had views of the Taj Mahal from it.  Quite possibly because there are only a small handful of decent hotels anyways.  So, I booked one night at the Oberoi (an extremely nice small chain in India and Europe).  This will be the one time that I do not publicize the cost...if you want to go visit, you can go look it up.  Needless to say, it is a definite 5-star hotel, the staff was impeccable in their service, and I was fulfilling a "bucket list" item.

Entering a whole new world compared to the outside local area:

Beautiful carved marble and sandstone:

Entrance to the courtyard after a lovely little drive from the front gate:

Straight ahead shot of the courtyard:

Looking left, inside the courtyard:

 Looking right inside the courtyard, the hotel itself:

Through the entry of the hotel there is a little sitting room with this view:

Here was our very comfortable room.  For some strange reason, I did not take a picture of the bathroom.  There was no doubt that it had been designed by a high-end decorator...it was gorgeous and lavish.  We did not spend even more and get the rooms on the upper floor, the ones where the publicity pictures show a claw-foot tub in the middle of a gigantic bathroom with a huge arched window-view of the Taj. But still, seriously nice. 

Standing on our private balcony, our view of the Taj.  I had been welcomed and "blessed" with this orange-colored flowered paste to "enlighten my mind."  Not sure why Jeremy doesn't have a picture of his...:

 Zooming in on the Taj Mahal and the red East Gate entrance:

Also zooming in on a little view we had of "local housing":

The backside of the hotel.  The three arched windows are the sitting room with the chandelier and view shown previously.  We are up another floor, without the arched windows, slightly hidden by the balconies we had:

Another backside shot, including the pool:

The drive down the new, and only "interstate" from Agra to Delhi took about 3-1/2 hours.  The hotel kept the buffet breakfast going for us.  Jeremy and I had a wonderful, wonderful dosa: