New Delhi: the planned capital and its embassy district

Kartavya Path, the capital's ceremonial avenue, runs about three kilometres from India Gate in the east to Rashtrapati Bhavan in the west, between lawns and long water channels. India Gate, the stone arch at its eastern end, is a memorial to Indian soldiers who died in the First World War and in the Afghan campaign that followed, and their names are carved into it. At the western end the avenue climbs Raisina Hill between the two long Secretariat blocks to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President's residence, where Edwin Lutyens — whose name the bungalow zone around it still carries — joined European classical planning to Indian forms, most visibly in a great dome that echoes a Buddhist stupa. Nearby on Sansad Marg stand the circular old Parliament House, now called Samvidhan Sadan, and the triangular parliament building beside it. The avenue and India Gate are open ground, best walked early on a winter morning when mist lies on the lawns, and Central Secretariat metro station is at the Raisina Hill end.

Two of the national collections stand by the avenue. The National Museum, on Janpath just south of Kartavya Path, runs from the Indus Valley — the small bronze Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro among it — through Buddhist sculpture to Mughal miniatures and manuscripts, a survey of the subcontinent's art that makes a good first stop before travelling further in India. The National Gallery of Modern Art, in Jaipur House, a former princely residence on the circle around India Gate, follows Indian painting and sculpture from the nineteenth century to the present. A short ride south-west, the house on Safdarjung Road where Indira Gandhi lived is kept as a memorial museum.

Connaught Place, the commercial centre of the planned capital, is a circus of white colonnaded blocks in two rings around a central park, built as the new city's shopping district and still the meeting point of the old city to the north and the government quarter to the south. Its colonnades hold shops, bars and restaurants, and beneath the park lies Palika Bazaar, an underground warren of small shops where prices are bargained. Rajiv Chowk station, where the metro's Yellow and Blue lines cross, is directly underneath. Baba Kharak Singh Marg, one of the roads radiating from the circus, is lined with the emporia run by India's state governments, each selling its own region's textiles and crafts at fixed prices — the place to buy handloom and handicraft with a known origin.

Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, a short walk south-west of Connaught Place on Ashoka Road, is a white marble Sikh gurdwara under a golden dome, with a large pool, the sarovar, beside the main hall, where hymns from the scripture are sung through the day. Its langar, the community kitchen every gurdwara keeps, serves a simple vegetarian meal to anyone who comes, whatever their faith or standing, seated side by side in rows on the floor of the dining hall. Visitors are welcome to eat and to help in the kitchens, chopping, cooking or washing up. Cover your head — scarves are handed out at the entrance — leave your shoes at the counter, and rinse your hands and feet before going in.

Lodhi Gardens, some ninety acres of lawns, palms and walking paths, holds tombs and a mosque of the Sayyid and Lodi sultans from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: the octagonal tomb of Mohammed Shah, the domed Bara Gumbad with its mosque, the Shisha Gumbad, and the walled tomb of Sikandar Lodi. They stand in open parkland, with nothing between the path and the walls, and in the early morning the paths fill with joggers, walkers and yoga groups from the neighbourhoods around. The garden lies between Khan Market and Jor Bagh metro stations, with Safdarjung's Tomb a short walk west. Across Lodhi Road, the walls of the government housing blocks in Lodhi Colony carry large painted murals, the Lodhi Art District, best seen on foot.

Khan Market, just north of Lodhi Gardens and at its own station on the metro's Violet Line, is a compact market of bookshops, clothing and homeware boutiques and food shops, with restaurants and cafés on its upper floors. It is where the residents of the bungalow zone and the embassies shop and eat out, and with the restaurants of Connaught Place it holds much of the district's dining; the street food and the Mughlai kitchens are the old city's.

Chanakyapuri, south-west of Rashtrapati Bhavan, is the diplomatic enclave: wide, tree-lined avenues such as Shanti Path, with embassies, high commissions and ambassadors' residences behind long boundary walls. A large share of the missions to India stand here, though others sit in residential districts elsewhere in south Delhi, Vasant Vihar among them, so the address on the appointment letter matters more than the enclave's name. The visa-application centres that many countries use are separate from their embassies and work from commercial buildings in and around New Delhi. Few missions stand near a metro station, so the last stretch is a ride by cab, ride-hailing car or auto-rickshaw.

An appointment day goes best when it is kept simple. Book the ride there in advance rather than finding one at the kerb, and allow far more time than the distance suggests: the enclave's roads are quiet, but security at the gate is thorough, queues form outside, and many missions do not let phones or bags inside, so read the appointment letter for what may be carried in and leave the rest at the hotel. Keep sightseeing to the hours after the appointment and choose something close by, such as the National Rail Museum in the enclave or Lodhi Gardens a short ride east.

In Chanakyapuri, the National Rail Museum keeps an open-air collection of steam locomotives, carriages and the ornate saloons once built for royal travel, with an indoor gallery of railway history beside them. It suits children well, and it fills the afternoon after an appointment in the enclave.

The metro's Yellow Line runs north to south through the district, from Rajiv Chowk under Connaught Place through Central Secretariat to Jor Bagh, and the Violet Line crosses it at Central Secretariat on its way to Khan Market. The Airport Express starts at New Delhi railway station on the district's northern edge, calls at Shivaji Stadium beside Connaught Place, and runs on to Aerocity, the hotel district by the airfield, and Terminal 3 of Delhi's Indira Gandhi airport. From the stations, ride-hailing cars and auto-rickshaws cover the last stretch. On national days and during state visits, the roads across the ceremonial avenue close, sometimes at short notice, and traffic reroutes around the whole precinct; January, the month of the Republic Day rehearsals, sees the most closures.