What to do in Delhi on a second visit: a Thursday-to-Sunday itinerary
Qawwals singing at a shrine courtyard in Delhi on a Thursday evening
You have already done the Red Fort, Qutub and India Gate, so this four-day long weekend spends its 14 daylight hours a day on the ridge forests, Sufi shrines, Tibetan colonies and Tughlaq ruins the first trip never reaches.
Why it starts on a Thursday
Because Thursday evening is when qawwali is sung at the Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah, and there is nothing else in Delhi like it. Singers begin after the maghrib prayer, around 6.30pm depending on the season, and go on for a couple of hours in a marble courtyard packed with people who are there to pray rather than to watch. Entry is free, shoes come off at a stall for ₹20, heads are covered by everyone, and women are not permitted inside the inner chamber but sit in the courtyard. Give a modest offering if you want to, ignore anyone demanding a fixed amount.
Get there by 5.30 to walk the basti first: the lane from Mathura Road narrows into a market of ittar sellers, rose-petal baskets and kebab griddles. Mirza Ghalib's tomb sits a two-minute walk away and takes ten minutes. Eat afterwards at Ghalib Kabab Corner or the Nizamuddin branch of Karim's, ₹300 to ₹600 a head for seekh, biryani and sheermal. Sleep the first night in Nizamuddin East or Jangpura, where guesthouses and small hotels run ₹3,500 to ₹7,000 and you can walk home in fifteen minutes.
Friday: Mehrauli beyond the Qutub, and the ridge forest
Everybody does the Qutub complex; almost nobody walks the free Archaeological Park behind it, which holds around a hundred monuments across 200 acres. Start at 7am at Rajon ki Baoli, a stepwell of 1506, then Jamali Kamali's mosque and painted tomb chamber, Balban's tomb with the first true arch built in India, and Quli Khan's tomb, converted into a country house by the British resident Thomas Metcalfe in the 1840s. By 10am cut across to Mehrauli village for Zafar Mahal, the last Mughal palace, and Adham Khan's tomb on the roundabout, known locally as Bhool Bhulaiyan.
After breakfast, walk into Sanjay Van from the Mehrauli or Vasant Kunj gate — 780 acres of thorn forest on the Delhi Ridge, with peacocks, nilgai, the fourteenth-century Qila Rai Pithora wall line and a small shrine at the centre. It is free, open dawn to dusk, and genuinely quiet. Afternoon: Champa Gali and the Dhan Mill Compound in Chhatarpur for coffee, ceramics and independent design, an hour each. Sleep in Hauz Khas Enclave or Green Park, ₹3,000 to ₹6,000 in converted-house guesthouses, ten minutes from all of it.
Saturday: the north — Civil Lines, the Northern Ridge and Coronation Park
Take the Yellow Line to Vidhan Sabha and start at 8am on the Northern Ridge. Within a two-kilometre stretch you get the Ashokan pillar Firoz Shah moved from Meerut in the 1350s, the octagonal Flagstaff Tower where British families sheltered in May 1857, Hindu Rao's house, and the Mutiny Memorial, a Gothic spire the government re-dedicated to the Indian soldiers of 1857. It is a working morning park full of runners and langurs, entirely free, and it explains more Delhi history per hour than anywhere else in the city.
At 10.30 walk down into Civil Lines for St James Church, built in 1836 by James Skinner of Skinner's Horse, and Nicholson Cemetery beside Kashmere Gate. Then drive twenty minutes north to Coronation Park at Burari, an empty field where the 1911 Durbar was held and where the marble statues of George V and assorted viceroys were exiled after independence — five metres tall, staring at nothing, and one of the strangest sights in India. Lunch in Majnu ka Tila, the Tibetan colony on the river, ₹200 to ₹400 for thukpa, laphing and steamed momos.
Saturday evening: Purana Qila, the ghats and a market you have not done
Late afternoon, cross to the Yamuna's western bank for Vasudev Ghat, restored in 2023 with stepped terraces, lamps and planted embankments, which is the first place in decades where Delhiites sit by their own river voluntarily. It is a twenty-minute stop and best around 5.30pm. From there, Feroz Shah Kotla is ten minutes south and on a Thursday or Saturday evening you will find letters left in the cellar niches for the jinns; entry is around ₹25 and ₹300 and it closes at sunset, so time it tight.
For dinner, skip Hauz Khas Village and go to Chittaranjan Park, the Bengali colony in south Delhi, where the market number one fish stalls, kathi roll counters and sweet shops serving mishti doi and roshogolla cost ₹150 to ₹400 a head. It is a neighbourhood evening rather than a night out, and it is the sort of thing a first trip never gets to. Sleep in Greater Kailash or Defence Colony tonight, ₹3,500 to ₹8,000, both within ten minutes of C R Park by car.
Sunday: Tughlaqabad, Jahanpanah and the art district
Open at 7.30am at Tughlaqabad Fort, entry about ₹25 and ₹300, a 1321 fortress of enormous sloping bastions across a rocky spur, with a causeway to Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq's marble-and-sandstone tomb across the road. Ninety minutes of rough walking in closed shoes, and you will likely share it with a dozen people rather than a thousand. Follow it with Begumpuri Masjid in Sarvapriya Vihar, a vast empty courtyard mosque from the Jahanpanah city where local kids play cricket, and Bijay Mandal five minutes away, both free and both unmarked on most tourist maps.
In the afternoon, walk the Lodhi Art District in Lodhi Colony, where more than fifty large murals have been painted across government housing blocks since 2016 — free, open, and best between blocks 3 and 8. Finish at Meherchand Market for coffee and a bookshop. If your flight is Monday morning, Sunday night belongs in Lodhi Road or Khan Market at ₹5,000 to ₹11,000; if it is Sunday night, Aerocity's towers at ₹7,000 to ₹15,000 are the sane last bed, ten minutes from Terminal 3.
Eating differently from your first trip
A second visit is the time to leave the Karim's-and-Paranthe-Wali-Gali circuit. Nizamuddin basti does the best kebabs in the city on Thursday nights. Majnu ka Tila does Tibetan food properly — laphing, shabhalay, butter tea — for under ₹400. Chittaranjan Park does Bengali fish. Lajpat Nagar's Central Market does Afghan bread and kebabs on the lanes near the Afghan-run bakeries. Karol Bagh's Roshan di Kulfi does chhole bhature at ₹150 and a rabri-faluda kulfi at ₹150 that is worth crossing the city for at 9pm.
For a sit-down dinner, the restaurants around Meherchand Market, Shahpur Jat and Dhan Mill run ₹1,200 to ₹2,500 a head and are where Delhi's own cooking scene actually is, rather than the hotel dining rooms. Book on Friday and Saturday. One practical note: Delhi has a dry day on Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and on some election dates, when no restaurant or bar serves alcohol — check the calendar if a particular evening matters, because it catches people out every year.
Where to base yourself, and how to move
Do not rebook Connaught Place or Paharganj on a second trip. The neighbourhoods that suit this itinerary are Nizamuddin East and Jangpura for the shrine and the gardens, Hauz Khas Enclave and Green Park for the southern ruins, and Defence Colony or Greater Kailash for the eating. All three clusters sit within ten minutes of a metro station, and all three run ₹3,000 to ₹8,000 for a decent room in the October to March season, roughly a third less in May and June. Splitting nights between two of them costs you an hour of packing but saves you two hours of driving.
Transport-wise, the Yellow, Violet and Magenta lines cover most of this route and a one-day tourist card is ₹200, three days ₹500, plus a ₹50 deposit. The exceptions that need a car are Tughlaqabad, Begumpuri, Coronation Park and Sanjay Van, none of which has a workable station; hire a driver on the eight-hour, eighty-kilometre basis for ₹2,800 to ₹3,500 on the Saturday and Sunday only. Autos across central Delhi run ₹150 to ₹250 on the meter; e-rickshaws do the last kilometre for ₹20 to ₹50.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Hauz Khas.
The shrine is open every day and busy every evening, but the qawwali sessions are the Thursday fixture, starting after maghrib prayers. Friday after the afternoon prayer is also lively. Any other night you will get the atmosphere of the basti and the lit courtyard but not the singing, which is the reason to go.
It is a genuine forest of 780 acres with quiet stretches and few people mid-morning. The main marked trails near the Mehrauli and Vasant Kunj gates see regular walkers between 6.30 and 9am, which is the window to use. Go in pairs, stay on the marked paths, and do not go in near dusk.
Sultan Ghari in Vasant Kunj, the 1231 tomb of Iltutmish's eldest son and the oldest Islamic mausoleum in India, followed by Khirki Masjid in Malviya Nagar, a fortress-like covered mosque from the 1370s. Both are free, both take under an hour, and neither appears on standard tours.
Late February to mid-March. The ridge forest and Mehrauli park are green after the winter rain, temperatures sit between 15 and 30°C, and the November-to-January smog has cleared. October is the second choice. Avoid the last week of December, when fog can hold visibility under 100 metres for whole mornings.
