Shimla

A UNESCO World Heritage marvel, the Kalka–Shimla Railway winds through 102 tunnels and over 864 bridges on a narrow‑gauge ascent that gains 1,400 metres in just 96 kilometres. Vintage railcars clatter past pine‑clad hills, colonial‑era stations, and mist‑veiled valleys, offering a moving panorama of the Himalayan foothills that has changed little since the line opened in 1903. The journey’s rhythmic cadence and the scent of cedar drifting through open windows evoke the leisurely pace of the “Raj,” while the engineering feats—sharp curves, gradient loops, and the iconic multi‑arch galleries—remain a testament to Victorian ingenuity.

Perched on Observatory Hill at the western end of the Mall, the Viceregal Lodge — now Rashtrapati Niwas — is a Jacobethan masterpiece that once served as the summer seat of British India’s imperial power. Completed in 1888 under Lord Dufferin, the Scottish Baronial pile of light-grey sandstone, with its turrets, oriel windows, and steeply pitched slate roofs, was designed by Henry Irwin to evoke a Highland castle transplanted to the Himalaya. Inside, the grand staircase ascends beneath a heraldic stained-glass skylight to the ballroom where viceroys hosted princes and polo champions; the teak-panelled council chamber witnessed the 1945 Simla Conference, a failed prelude to Partition. The lodge’s grounds, laid out by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, shelter Himalayan cedars, horse chestnuts, and a rose garden that blooms riotously in June. Since 1965, the Indian Institute of Advanced Study has occupied the halls, its fellows pacing corridors where Mountbatten and Wavell once plotted the end of empire. Guided tours reveal the viceroy’s private study, the ADC’s quarters, and the underground tunnel (now sealed) that linked to the nearby Barnes Court.

Perched at 2,250 metres on a ridge that commands the Sutlej valley, Chail was born of royal pique: when the Maharaja of Patiala was barred from Shimla’s Mall, he built his own summer capital — complete with the world’s highest cricket ground, a polo field, and a palace that now operates as a heritage hotel. The hill station’s allure is its hush. Deodar forests muffle sound; the only traffic is the occasional langur troop crossing the road. Trails radiate into the Chail Wildlife Sanctuary, where goral and kakkar (barking deer) graze dawn meadows, and the Kali Ka Tibba temple crowns the highest knob with panoramic sweeps toward the Pir Panjal. It is Shimla’s quieter, wilder sibling — a place to breathe pine-scented air and watch the lights of the plains flicker awake far below.