Lucknow's headline sights are the great Nawabi monuments north of the river: the Bara Imambara with its bewildering Bhool Bhulaiya labyrinth, the Chota Imambara with its silvered domes, the gateway of the Rumi Darwaza, and the Husainabad Clock Tower. Together with the Jama Masjid and the half-ruined Sat Khanda they form a half-day's walking circuit through the old city around Hussainabad.
A second cluster of sights traces the British half of Lucknow's history: the burned-out Residency, where the 1857 siege played out; the gardens at Sikandar Bagh; the Gothic eccentricity of La Martinière College; and the modest old British cantonment around it. Add the modern monuments — the vast pink Ambedkar Memorial Park, Janeshwar Mishra Park, and the Indira Gandhi Planetarium — and you have several full days of wandering before you even reach the bazaars of Chowk and Aminabad.