‘A teardrop on the face of Eternity’ is how the Bengali mystic poet, Rabindranath Tagore, famously described the Taj Mahal. Built in the mid-16th century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife Mumtaz, the mausoleum possesses an ethereal beauty that’s somehow undiminished by the crowds who spill through its gateway each day. View it through the delicate haze of early morning, when mist swirls from the adjacent Yamuna River or, best of all, under a full moon, reflected in the ponds lining the approach paths.