up to the Taj Mahal

After you walk the length of the reflecting pools, you are at the base of the high marble platform that surrounds and supports the edifice. (It's too grand to call it a building.). The architect's trick of the narrow portal opening into a large space is repeated. Keeping in mind this is both a Muslim-designed shrine and an attraction for millions of feet per year, everyone must leave shoes outside at the foot of these stairs and put on disposable paper booties of the kind you see in a hospital. Despite that protection from hard shoes and skin oils, the marble stairs are clearly worn by the feet of those before us. The tower here is the one at the southwest corner of the platform.