Shimla & Manali Family Holiday — Six Nights, Up by the Toy Train

The morning train from Delhi reaches Kalka in time for the narrow-gauge connection, and the toy train does the rest: 96 km at a walking pace, 102 tunnels, the long curved viaducts, and a climb from 656 m at Kalka to 2,075 m at Shimla in about five hours, with the plains falling away behind. It is the day children talk about afterwards. A car meets the train at Shimla station, and the evening is the Ridge and the Mall, which are pedestrian, and an early night after the travel.

The Jakhoo ropeway first, up to the Hanuman temple on the highest hill in Shimla, with the macaques that give the place its reputation kept at arm's length by the guides — children love the cable car and the view down over the town. Christ Church on the Ridge, from 1857, and the Mall for an ice cream. The afternoon goes out to Kufri, 16 km east: the Himalayan Nature Park with its Himalayan bears, leopards and pheasants, and the pony trail up to Mahasu Peak, which is the other thing children remember. Back to Shimla for dinner.

The Viceregal Lodge in the morning for the parents — the Scottish baronial pile of 1888 where the partition plan was agreed — with the lawns for the children. Then a deliberately loose afternoon: Annandale's open ground, the Heritage Museum or the toy-train museum at the station, or simply the Mall again. A family holiday needs one day that is not a schedule, and this is it. Tomorrow is the long road day, so the evening is early.

The transfer north: about 250 km and seven to eight hours, dropping to the Sutlej at Bilaspur and then climbing the Beas through Mandi into the Kullu valley, with the river alongside for the last three hours. We break it twice and leave nothing else on the day; the car has room to stretch and the stops are chosen for children rather than for sightseeing. Into Manali by evening and straight into the family rooms.

Solang in the morning, the broad meadow under the Rohtang road: the ropeway to the ridge, zorbing and short paragliding flights in the warm months, snow play and sledging from December to March, all paid on the day so you choose what suits the ages. Back for lunch. The Hadimba Devi temple in its stand of old deodar in the afternoon — a four-tiered pagoda roof over a rock shrine, built in 1553 — and Van Vihar by the river, the town park with its boating pond, before dinner.

North to the south portal of the Atal Tunnel, about 25 km from Manali, and nine kilometres under the mountain to Lahaul — the tunnel is open in every month and needs no permit, which is why this day is in the itinerary and Rohtang is not. Sissu on the far side has a waterfall, a lake with paddle boats in season and snow on the ridges for most of the year. Lunch there and back through the tunnel for Vashisht's hot springs or the Mall, and a last evening in the valley.

The descent of the Beas and out through Mandi to the plains: about eight hours to Chandigarh, more to Delhi, broken for lunch and with nothing else asked of the day. Your Live Traveller journey ends at the airport or the station. Families flying from Bhuntar, an hour below Manali, should book knowing that the valley cancels flights often and the road is the reliable way out.