Mumbai, Ajanta and Ellora: 5-Day Tour of India's Great Cave Temples

Arrive in Mumbai: the Oval Maidan and Marine Drive

Your driver meets you at Mumbai airport and takes you to your hotel in South Mumbai, the historic heart of the city. Depending on traffic, the drive along the sea link and the western seafront takes about an hour or more. Rest for a few hours after the flight.

In the late afternoon, walk the Oval Maidan, where cricket matches are played between two of the finest architectural ensembles in Asia: the Victorian Gothic High Court and University buildings on one side, with the Rajabai Clock Tower designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and a row of 1930s Art Deco apartment blocks on the other, with curved balconies and ship-like details. Together they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Weekend afternoons are the liveliest time for cricket.

Finish at sunset on Marine Drive, the sweeping seafront promenade whose streetlights at night earned it the name 'the Queen's Necklace'. Walk north along the sea wall to Girgaum Chowpatty, the city beach at its end, for bhel puri or pav bhaji from the food stalls.

• ArrivalMeet and greet at Mumbai airport
• Late afternoonOval Maidan: Victorian Gothic and Art Deco
• SunsetMarine Drive and Girgaum Chowpatty

OvernightMumbai, 2 nights, at a hotel in South Mumbai.

Elephanta Caves, Colaba and the CSMT terminus

Take the morning ferry from the Gateway of India, completed in 1924, across Mumbai harbour to Elephanta Island. Climb the steps to the caves, carved in the 5th to 7th centuries and dedicated to Shiva. The great hall holds the Sadashiva, a 6-metre carving of Shiva with three faces, as creator, preserver and destroyer, one of the masterpieces of Indian sculpture. Elephanta is closed on Mondays.

Back by early afternoon, walk through Colaba and the Kala Ghoda art district, past the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, opened in 1903, the Jehangir Art Gallery and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai's main museum, with fine Indian sculpture and miniature paintings.

End at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), the Victorian Gothic railway station completed in 1888 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its own right, at rush hour, when thousands of commuters pour through it. If you are here at midday on a weekday, your guide can show you the dabbawalas, who deliver home-cooked lunches across the city.

• MorningFerry to the Elephanta Caves
• AfternoonColaba, Kala Ghoda and the museum
• EveningCSMT railway terminus

OvernightMumbai.

Fly inland to Ellora and the Kailasa temple

Fly from Mumbai to Aurangabad airport in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, as the city has been officially called since 2023. On the drive to Ellora, see the hilltop fortress of Daulatabad, once the capital of the Tughlaq sultans.

Spend the afternoon at the Ellora Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of 34 Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves carved between about the 6th and 10th centuries, side by side along a basalt cliff. Begin with the Buddhist caves, including the three-storey Cave 12 and the 'carpenter's cave' with its ribbed vault.

Save your energy for Cave 16, the Kailasa temple, the largest rock-cut monument in the world. Commissioned in the 8th century by the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I, it was carved from the top down out of a single mass of rock, a complete temple with courtyards, life-size elephants and towers. Ellora is closed on Tuesdays.

• MorningFlight to Aurangabad; Daulatabad Fort en route
• AfternoonEllora's Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves
• Late afternoonThe Kailasa temple, Cave 16

OvernightChhatrapati Sambhajinagar, 2 nights, at a city hotel.

The painted caves of Ajanta

Drive north-east to Ajanta. A compulsory eco-shuttle bus covers the last few kilometres from the Fardapur T-point to the caves, which are cut into the face of a horseshoe-shaped gorge above the Waghora River.

The 30 caves were carved by Buddhist monks in two phases, from about the 2nd century BC and again in the 5th century AD, then abandoned and forgotten until a British officer stumbled on them while hunting a tiger in 1819. Their murals, painted with mineral pigments, are the finest surviving paintings of ancient India: scenes from the Buddha's lives, princes and dancers, animals and palaces. Don't miss the Bodhisattva Padmapani in Cave 1.

Your guide focuses on the best painted caves, where lighting is kept low to protect the murals. Ajanta is closed on Mondays. Drive back to the city for dinner.

• MorningDrive to Ajanta and take the shuttle
• DayAjanta's painted and sculpted caves with your guide
• EveningReturn to the city

OvernightChhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad), at a city hotel.

Bibi Ka Maqbara and fly to Mumbai

See Bibi Ka Maqbara in the soft morning light. Built in the 1660s by Aurangzeb's son, Azam Shah, in memory of his mother, it was modelled on the Taj Mahal and is often called the 'Taj of the Deccan'. If time allows, visit a Himroo or Paithani weaving workshop, the city's traditional silks.

Fly back to Mumbai and connect to your onward flight. Allow at least four hours between flights.

• MorningBibi Ka Maqbara
• OptionalPaithani or Himroo weaving
• DepartureFlight to Mumbai