Nothing can prepare you for the beauty of the Taj Mahal. Yes, you've seen it a million times, on travel posters, in coffee-table books, even on the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland. You think you know that graceful center dome, the symmetrical white marble building with its pointed arches, the four punctuating minarets, the serene reflecting pool—but you cannot imagine how intricate it really is, how ethereal. Children generally assume it's a palace, until they learn the eerie truth: It's an over-the-top mausoleum.

Children always like a sight with a good story, and there's none better than the story behind the Taj. It was built by the grieving Shah Jahan, the fifth emperor of the powerful Mughal dynasty, to fulfill a deathbed promise to his favorite wife, whom he called Mumtaz Mahal ("Elect of the Palace"). He placed it beside the Yamuna River (where flooding is always a danger), next to the bustling market of the Tajganj, where it is said he first saw Mumtaz selling jewels in a market stall. Work started in 1641, and it took 20,000 laborers 22 years to complete. When Shah Jahan himself died, his cenotaph was placed beside his beloved Mumtaz's, somewhat spoiling the perfect original symmetry of the mausoleum chamber.

A red-sandstone gatehouse divides the Taj Mahal's tranquil gardens from the crowded city outside. What I always thought of as a sugar-cube white building is in fact a bejeweled box, with exquisite detailing covering the marble inside and out—a technique called pietra dura, which came from either Italy or Persia, depending on which scholar you read. As you stroll around, study these intricately carved floral bouquets, inlaid with precious stones—agate, jasper, malachite, turquoise, tiger's-eye, lapis lazuli, coral, carnelian. Notice how the panels of calligraphy, inlaid with black marble, are designed to get bigger the higher they are placed, so the letters all appear the same size to a beholder on the ground level. Past the central pool rises the arched octagonal building containing the tombs, its white dome ringed by four minidomes. Inside, the two tombs are surrounded by delicate filigreed screens carved from a single piece of marble. Two red mosques flank the mausoleum on either side, one of them required by the Muslim faith, the other a "dummy" built for the sheer love of symmetry.

Open from dawn to dusk, the Taj changes color depending on the time of day. There used to be nighttime hours for visiting by moonlight, no doubt the most shimmering hour of all. But even at high noon, the Taj Mahal will not disappoint you, not any of you.

Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.