Amritsar

Founded in 1577 by the fourth Sikh guru, Guru Ram Das, Amritsar is home to the spectacular Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine and one of India’s most serene and humbling sights. The hyperactive streets surrounding the temple have been calmed to some extent by recent urban landscaping, including graceful pedestrianised walkways, but duck into any side alley and you’ll soon discover Amritsar’s fantastically frenetic old-city bazaars, sheltering a sensory overload of sights, sounds and smells.