The best way to travel to the mountain retreat of Shimla is the way British officers and their wives did during the Raj: aboard the panoramic narrow-gauge steam railway. Clinging to spurs way up in the northwest Himalayas, Shimla (then Simla) was the summer headquarters of the British government in India, a place to escape the intense heat of the plains.
The Viceregal Lodge and Gaiety Theatre are reminders of those days, as are The Ridge and Scandal Point on the Mall – a road and a crossroads, respectively. The latter is still the town’s main strolling and meeting area.