Day 3.

After a good sleep I headed downstairs for breakfast at the hotel on the morning of day 3.


At 9:30am I caught up with my guide for the next few days, Mr. Ghulam. We then met up with our driver, Mr. Ashfaq, and to Iqbal Park in the centre of Lahore. Today was Pakistan Day and a public holiday and the park was starting to fill up with people on their day off.


A group of students holding a banner and portraits of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the spiritual father of Pakistan, for Pakistan Day.


We then headed to the nearby Badshahi Mosque.


Completed in 1673 after only two years of construction, the mosque was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb to commemorate his military campaigns against the Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji.

Built in a mixture of red sandstone and marble the mosque has a capacity for 56,000 worshippers and has three domes and eight minarets.


In 1799 the Sikh army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh took control of Lahore and used the mosque courtyard as a stable for his army horses.

Inside the main prayer hall with its eleborate carved white marble and plasterwork.


Looking up at the elaborate white marble ceiling.


The carved floral design is common to Mughal art.


Inside one of the 80 Hujras (small study rooms surrounding the courtyard).


Looking across to Iqbal Park and the Minar-e-Pakistan, a monument built at the location where the Lahore Resolution was signed exactly 78 years ago on the 23rd of March, 1940.