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Martin Randall's Cultural Holidays are ATOL and AITO protected.
Voysey House,
Barley Mow Passage
London W4 4GF
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8742 3355
USA: 1-800-988-6168
Canada: (647) 382 1644
Australia: 1300 55 95 95
New Zealand: 61-7-3377-0141
India Tours
Our aim is to create the most enjoyable and memorable tours to India available – the best planned, the best led, the most informative and illuminating.
Most of the tours are designed around a theme or a bundle of themes. Subject matter in the first season includes Buddhism in central India, the Indian Mutiny in the north, Hindu temples in the south, Rajput and Mughal culture in Rajasthan and the history and architecture of the British Raj.
Having a focus does not preclude learning about other aspects of India. On all our tours elements are included which do not relate directly to the primary subject matter, and plenty of information will be provided about broader aspects of Indian history and culture, past and present.
The Indian Mutiny
- A study of the single most important and controversial set of events in the history of the British in India.
- The Mutiny was a turning point for the Subcontinent and also for Victorian Britain.
- A tour of intense interest for military, imperial and Indian history.
Rajput & Mughal Rajasthan
- Architecture, art and history amid the enthralling landscapes and beautiful cities, forts and palaces of north-west India.
- The Hindu Rajput clans of northern and central India claim family trees going back to the sixth century.
- The Muslim Mughal empire lasted from 1527 to 1857, at its peak encompassing most of the Subcontinent.
The British Raj
- Led by two eminent lecturers, a historian of the Raj and a specialist in Victorian and Edwardian architecture.
- Visits the major centres of British power, still India’s leading cities – Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata) and Delhi.
- There is an extraordinary wealth of European-style architecture from the late eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.
Temples of Tamil Nadu
- The art and architecture of Hinduism in the southernmost state of the Subcontinent. Includes Madras, Mamallapuram, Thanjavur, Srirangam and Madurai.
- The tour looks at other aspects of India in Pondicherry, the Chettinad region and elsewhere.
- The lecturer is both an architectural historian and a practising architect, and the designer of a temple in India.
Kingdoms of the Deccan
- Islamic architecture in the four capital cities of the Bahmani sultanate founded in the 14th and 15th centuries (Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda).
- Hindu architecture of the Chalukyas from the 6th to the 12th centuries (Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal).
- The Islamic state of Hyderabad was one of India’s largest princedoms and retains a rich artistic heritage.
Bengal by River
- Combines four days in Calcutta with a week visiting places along the River Hooghly on an exclusively chartered cruiser.
- Steeped in history and dense with fine architecture, but off the usual tourist route.
- Bengal, an outpost of the Mughal Empire and the first region to come under the control of the East India Company.
Essential India
- Includes some of India’s most celebrated sites and also lesser-known but quintessential places. Arrangements for special access a feature.
- Spends more time at the centres visited than most mainstream tours, and free time is allowed for rest or independent exploration.
- Varanasi, one of the oldest continously inhabited cities in the world, and the most sacred in India; the Hindu temples of Khajuraho; Rajput and Mughal forts, palaces and funerary monuments.
Ashoka and Buddhist India
- In the third century bc Ashoka united much of India, and established Buddhism as the imperial religion.
- This tour visits India’s major Buddhist sites (Sarnath, Bodhgaya, Vaishali, Sanchi) and sees much of the finest Buddhist and Hindu sculpture (at museums in Delhi, Sarnath, Patna and Calcutta).
- Studies the life of the historical Buddha, the spread of the new religion and its doctrine, and the art and architecture it spawned.
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