For fifteen minutes after the gates open, the long pool is empty and the white dome slowly warms above its own reflection.
Our hour there
We were in the queue before it was light, cold hands around paper cups of sweet tea, arguing about whether it counts as a date if you set an alarm for five. Then the arch, and the water running straight to the dome, and nobody on it. The marble went grey, then pink, then a white that seemed lit from inside. I had planned something cleverer than a sway. We just held on, cheek to cheek, while a crow complained from the cypresses. The grandest thing we had ever stood in front of, and it felt like our own kitchen.
If you two are there when the gates open, half an hour before sunrise, walk straight through and take the first clear paving after the arch, centred on the water. You get about fifteen minutes of an empty pool. The reflection holds still and the only sound is feet on sandstone. Then the crowds reach the marble bench halfway down, and the quiet becomes something you remember rather than something you have. Keep the dance small; this is a tomb, with a working mosque beside it.
One honest thing. The sunset in the drawing doesn't happen in there: the gates close half an hour before the sun goes, and from that spot you face the wrong way for it anyway. We watched ours from the garden across the river the evening before, a Friday, when the Taj is shut. Leave the tripod at home, and in December or January keep a second morning free in case the fog wins.
♡ We had a bet on who would spot the first monkey on the garden walls, and we both lost to a very confident squirrel.