Thanks to the excellent geographical location of Helsinki on the great circle route, the flight time for Finnair's fast route to Delhi is only 6 hours 30 minutes. Initially the flights will run three times a week using Boeing MD-11 wide-bodied aircraft, but next spring the frequencies will be boosted to five a week.

A city of opposites
Delhi surprises the first-time visitor with its contrasts. For every adjective there truly is an opposite. The city is beautiful and ugly, gentle and cruel, rich and poor, colourful and grey. The streetscapes are a throng of cows, turbans, moustaches, beards, sellers, beggars, saris and rickshaws.

Delhi is a historical, cosmopolitan city, whose past is visible in everything: in art, architecture, music, food culture and way of life. Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs enjoy in Delhi a colourful coexistence, the basis for which has been created by streams of immigrants over the millennia, a multitude of conquerors and the colonial period.

Yesterday and today merge into each other. Weather forecasts are made by satellite and from astrological charts. Jean-clad teenagers munch hamburgers while nearby food is earnestly simmered in a tandoori oven to a thousand-year-old recipe.

Visitors are welcomed with open arms
There are challenges enough for the traveller, because the city's infrastructure is poor, traffic congested and power cuts an ordinary occurrence. But there is no lack of heartfelt warmth, either. India is a service society and visitors are welcomed with open arms. English is spoken everywhere.

Delhi has two faces. The city is completely different in the day and night. By day the temples are filled with devout believers and by night the hotel discos with wealthy merrymakers. New Delhi's trendy art galleries are situated a stone's throw away from a tented village.

Delhi can be described with many words, but dull or monotonous are not among them.

Traveller's golden triangle route
India is actually a subcontinent which has as many states and official languages as Western Europe. The whole of India can't be conquered in an instant, but Finnair flies to Delhi, from where connections radiate to every corner of the country.

The traveller's golden triangle route in Northern India includes, in addition to Delhi, the nearby Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, and Jaipur, the pink palace city of the maharajas.