Clément Bardot, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Attraction · Jaipur
The City Palace, Jaipur
The centre of the city Jai Singh drew from nothing in 1727 — and the one part of it his family never moved out of.
Begun1727
Still a residenceChandra Mahal, in part
Time neededTwo hours
WhereThe centre of the old grid
About
The middle of the plan
Jaipur was laid out on a nine-block grid in 1727, and the palace is the block the whole plan was arranged around. It is still partly lived in by the family that built it, which is unusual and which explains why some of it is open and some of it is firmly not.
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What to See
Inside the courtyards
The complex is a sequence of courtyards, each with a different function and a different century behind it.
Mubarak Mahal
- The reception building in the first courtyard, finished around 1900 in a deliberate mix of Rajput, Mughal and European detail. It now holds the textile and costume collection, including the famously enormous robes of Sawai Madho Singh I.
Pritam Niwas Chowk
- The small inner courtyard with four painted doorways, one for each season and each dedicated to a god. The peacock door is the one everybody photographs; the other three are better and quieter.
Chandra Mahal
- The seven-storey block at the back, still the family residence. Part of it can be visited separately; the rest is somebody's home and is closed, which is the honest answer to why you cannot go further.
The armoury and the Diwan-i-Khas
- The weapons collection is one of the better ones in India. In the hall of private audience stand two silver vessels made to carry Ganges water to England in 1901 — among the largest single pieces of silverware anywhere.
Getting There
Getting there
It is the centre of the old city, so it is walkable from almost everything else worth seeing.
On foot
- The Jantar Mantar is immediately beside it and Hawa Mahal is a short walk on. The three are one continuous visit and are almost always done together.
By road
- Auto and taxi drop at the Virendra Pol gate. The old-city lanes around it are congested for most of the day, so the walk from a nearby drop is often faster than the drive.
From Amber
- About eleven kilometres, twenty-five minutes. The usual order is Amber first thing and the palace afterwards, because Amber is the one that suffers from heat and crowds.
Best Time
When to go
Interiors and shaded courtyards, so this is the Jaipur sight least affected by weather.
Season
- October to March. April onwards the old city becomes genuinely hard work by the middle of the day.
Hour
- Late afternoon. The courtyards are in shade, the light on the pink and white plaster is better, and the coach groups have moved on.
How long
- Two hours for the courtyards, the textile rooms and the armoury. Add more if you take the separate Chandra Mahal route.
Visitor Intelligence
Worth knowing
A few things that change the visit.
The seasonal doors
- Pritam Niwas Chowk is small and everyone wants the same photograph of the peacock door. Go to the far end first and work back and you will have the other three to yourself.
Separate tickets
- Parts of the complex are ticketed separately from the main entry. Decide at the gate rather than halfway round, because you cannot easily double back.
Guides
- Licensed guides wait at the entrance. The palace rewards one more than most Rajasthan sites, because the sequence of courtyards is not self-explanatory.
Photography
- Courtyards are fine; several interiors are not, and the rules differ room to room. Ask rather than assume.
Nearby
Nearby
The rest of the old city.
Good to Know
Frequently asked
Part of it, yes. The Chandra Mahal at the back of the complex remains a private residence, which is why the visitor route stops where it does. A separate ticket opens some of those rooms; the rest stays closed, and that is a household rather than a conservation decision.
They do different jobs. Amber is a hillside fort of ascending courtyards, spectacular from outside and best early before the heat. The City Palace is urban, flat, shaded and about decoration, collections and court life rather than defence. Most itineraries do both, and doing Amber in the morning and the palace in the afternoon is the right way round.
More here than at most Rajasthan sites. The complex reads as a series of unrelated courtyards unless somebody explains the sequence and what each was for, and the collections — textiles, arms, the silver vessels — have stories that are not on the labels. Licensed guides wait at the entrance.
Two hours covers the courtyards, Mubarak Mahal, the armoury and the Diwan-i-Khas at a pace that lets you look properly. It sits naturally with the Jantar Mantar next door, which needs about an hour, so half a day covers both comfortably.
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