Gateway Of India Mumbai

This guide to the Gateway of India in Mumbai starts in December 1911, when King George the Fifth became the first reigning British monarch to set foot on Indian soil at this very spot on the harbour front, except the grand arch he walked under was only a cardboard-and-plaster mock-up. You'll hear how Scottish architect George Wittet spent over a decade fusing a European triumphal arch with sixteenth-century Gujarati stonework in local basalt before the real monument was finally finished. Stand at the harbour edge to see the same view those first crowds waited for.