Mathura to Agra by road, train or bus, with Akbar’s tomb and lunch on the way

Mathura to Agra is about 58 km by road: an hour and twenty minutes or so by car on the old Delhi–Agra highway, or 35 to 50 minutes by express train from Mathura Junction to Agra Cantt. Akbar’s tomb at Sikandra stands beside the highway where it enters Agra, and Altitude Rooftop Lounge, a rooftop restaurant in Shahganj, is about 16 minutes past it, open from 1:00 PM. That is the shape of the day: the temples in the morning, Sikandra on the way in, lunch at one, and the Taj after.

What follows is the road and its toll, taxis, trains and buses, the stop worth making, what Altitude can and cannot promise a vegetarian group, and the same day the other way round, from Agra.

Mathura to Agra distance, and how long it takes

The Mathura district’s own website puts Mathura almost 58 km north-west of Agra, and the road agrees. The number that matters is where you start and where you stop: Vrindavan is about 10 km beyond Mathura, and the Taj is on the far side of Agra from the highway.

Drive times are for a weekday late morning; weekends, festivals and the evening rush add to them.

Mathura to Agra by road: the highway, the toll and the expressway

By road it is one highway, the old Delhi–Agra road: NH-2 until the 2010 renumbering, NH-44 and NH-19 on today’s maps. It comes into Agra from the north-west, through Sikandra and past Akbar’s tomb; from Vrindavan, a short road joins it near Mathura.

The toll

There is one fee plaza between the two cities, at Mahuvan, roughly 20 km out of Mathura, according to the NHAI’s list of fee plazas. No fee is printed here, because rates are revised every year; the NHAI’s Rajmargyatra app shows the current fee for your vehicle, and the FASTag pays it.

• No FASTag costs more. Since 15 November 2025, a vehicle without a working FASTag pays twice the fee in cash, or 1.25 times by UPI.
• In a hired car, ask whether the toll is in the quote.

The Yamuna Expressway

The alternative is the Yamuna Expressway, the 165 km toll road from Greater Noida to Agra on the far bank of the river. You cross the Yamuna to its Mathura interchange, and it ends at Kuberpur, on NH-19 east of Agra: the opposite side of the city from Sikandra and Shahganj. For this plan the old highway is the direct road; staying on the Taj side, compare both on a map on the day.

In December and January, dense fog can settle on both roads at night and in the early morning; drive in daylight if you can.

Mathura to Agra by taxi: how to agree the fare

A car is the easy way, and the only one that turns Sikandra and lunch into a word to the driver. Fares depend on the car, the day and whether the driver goes back empty, so none is quoted here. Get two quotes, and settle these first:

• One way or return. A drop in Agra is a different job from a day out and back.
• The stops. Akbar’s tomb and lunch, with the waiting time for each.
• Tolls and parking. In the price, or on top.
• The drop. Hotel, station or both. For lunch: top floor above MG Road 2, Shahganj, with Domino’s at street level and parking at the foot of the building.
• The driver’s meal. Where and when the driver eats while you do.

Put the price and the plan in one WhatsApp message, so nobody remembers it differently later.

Mathura to Agra by train: the useful daily trains

Mathura Junction is on the main Delhi–Agra line, and dozens of trains a day run on to Agra Cantt, 54 km by rail; the expresses take 35 to 50 minutes. Some also stop at Raja Ki Mandi, about 3.8 km and 17 minutes from Altitude; Agra Cantt is about 5 km and 15 minutes away.

The Jhelum Express starts at Jammu Tawi and the Sachkhand at Amritsar, so either can run late; the others start in Delhi, a couple of hours up the line. Check the running status on NTES before you leave. For lunch, the Jhelum Express fits best: Raja Ki Mandi at 1:50 PM, at the table by about 2:15. The Taj Express suits a morning at the Taj, then lunch.

An unreserved ticket from the counter is good only in the general coaches, which on these trains can be packed; for a seat, book a reserved ticket on IRCTC ahead of time. The slow daily passenger 55333 leaves Mathura at 10:30 AM and goes round by Achhnera to Idgah (12:28 PM) and Agra Fort (1:20 PM), general class only.

Mathura to Agra by bus

UPSRTC, Uttar Pradesh’s state bus company, runs buses between Mathura and Agra through the day, and private operators add more. Booking sites list Agra’s ISBT, at Transport Nagar on the highway, as the main stop, with some UPSRTC services going on to the Agra Fort bus stand. The ride takes about an hour, more in traffic, and ordinary seats were listed from about ₹85 in October 2026.

Sikandra comes before the ISBT, so on an ordinary bus you can ask to be let off for Akbar’s tomb. From the ISBT, Altitude is about 5.4 km, or about 22 minutes by auto or cab.

The stop on the way in: Akbar’s tomb at Sikandra

Sikandra is where the Mathura road becomes Agra, and Akbar’s tomb is beside it: a gateway with four white marble minarets, a garden with blackbuck in it, and the emperor’s plain grave at the end of a long, dim passage. It costs no detour, an hour or so of your time, and unlike the Taj it is open on Fridays.

Tickets, timings and what to see are in the guide to Akbar’s tomb. Plan the clock: Altitude is about 5.6 km and 16 minutes on and opens at 1:00 PM, so reach the tomb by about noon and leave at a quarter past one. Early? Mariam-uz-Zamani’s tomb, a kilometre away, fills another half hour.

Lunch on the way in: a highway dhaba, or Altitude at the Agra end

Dhabas on the Mathura–Agra highway

The highway has dhabas, sweet shops and fuel-station food courts, and none is named here: they are hard to vouch for, and the drive is too short to need one. If you stop, eat food cooked hot in front of you at a busy place, drink sealed water, and use a large fuel station’s toilets. Otherwise eat at either end: breakfast in Mathura or Vrindavan, lunch in Agra. The Jaipur road is another story; see restaurants on the Agra–Jaipur highway.

Altitude Rooftop Lounge, Shahganj

Altitude is on the top floor above MG Road 2 in Shahganj, on the west side of Agra, a few minutes from where the Delhi–Agra highway comes in through Sikandra. For a car going on to the Taj, the Fort or Agra Cantt, the stop adds a kilometre at most. It opens every day at 1:00 PM, not before, and takes the last kitchen order at 11:00 PM.

The kitchen is on the roof, with a tandoor, a wok and a pizza oven: 225 dishes from ₹20 to ₹830, North Indian, Mughlai, Chinese, Continental and Italian, in English on the menu page. There are 60 seats on the open terrace and 40 indoors in air conditioning, a lift to the top floor and parking at the foot of the building; cash, UPI and cards are all taken. There is no Taj view from Altitude’s roof, only the city and the sky: see the Taj itself after lunch.

For pilgrims and vegetarians. Altitude is not a pure-veg kitchen: chicken, mutton, fish and eggs are cooked alongside the vegetables, and it cannot promise food without onion and garlic. Every dish is marked veg, non-veg or egg, and most one-plate meals are vegetarian. If your group eats only from a pure-veg kitchen, eat in Mathura or Vrindavan, where such restaurants are easy to find. There is no alcohol on the menu.

The quick order is a One Plate Wonder, a complete meal for one; the curry meals come with one butter naan, two butter rotis or steamed rice. On the menu in October 2026:

• Dal Makhani Meal, Kadhai Paneer Meal or Chole Meal, ₹380 each
• Kulcha + Dal Makhani, ₹380, or Punjabi Chole Bhature, ₹280
• Chilli Paneer + Hakka Noodles, ₹410, or Pav Bhaji Paaji, ₹250
• Chicken Curry Meal, ₹450

To share: Dal Makhan Wali at ₹380, Palak Paneer at ₹460 or Malai Kofta at ₹470, naan at ₹80, tandoori roti at ₹60, and the veg biryani at ₹400. Masala tea is ₹100, sealed water ₹20 at its printed price, and every mocktail is 30% off from 1 to 6 PM.

Mathura to the Taj with lunch on the way: the afternoon, timed

Timed for a weekday in mid-October, when the sun sets at about 5:50 PM and the Taj closes half an hour before it. In other months, move the last rows with the sun.

On a Friday the Taj is closed: take Agra Fort or Mehtab Bagh instead, and see Agra on a Friday. In a hurry? Skip Sikandra and you are at the table about an hour and twenty minutes after leaving Mathura. For the 9:25 PM Shatabdi to Delhi, where to eat near Agra Cantt times the evening to the train.

Agra to Mathura and Vrindavan in a day

The other way round, the same highway takes you out past Sikandra, and the day turns on one fact: the big temples close for the middle of the day. Give Mathura and Vrindavan the morning, and decide before you leave whether you are back in Agra for a late lunch or staying for the evening.

1. 7:00 AM. Leave Agra; Mathura is about an hour and twenty minutes away. By train, the daily Mahakaushal Express leaves Agra Cantt at 7:12 AM (Raja Ki Mandi 7:22) and reaches Mathura Junction at 7:55; the Sachkhand at 9:43 AM and the Mangladweep at 10:00 AM follow.
2. 8:30 AM. Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura. Expect a security check, and carry little.
3. 10:00 AM. Vrindavan, about 10 km on, for Banke Bihari and the temples near it before they close, around midday.
4. Noon. Drive back now, for a late lunch in Agra and the Taj after, or eat in Vrindavan and stay: the temples reopen in the late afternoon, and Prem Mandir’s musical fountain plays at 7:00 PM from October to March.
5. Evening. Agra is about an hour and a half from Vrindavan by road. Trains back from Mathura Junction include the Goa Express at 4:45 PM and, after the fountain, the Gita Jayanti Express at 8:40 PM, into Agra Cantt at 9:25. Altitude takes its last kitchen order at 11:00 PM.

Temple hours change with the season and by the temples’ own decision, so check on the day. Prem Mandir’s own site gives darshan from 8:30 AM to 12 noon and 4:30 to 8:30 PM; Banke Bihari’s hours were revised as recently as September 2025, so ask at its own site or the gate. Weekends and festivals, Janmashtami and Holi above all, bring very large crowds.