Lake Pichola

No. It was dammed in 1362 by a banjara grain trader, well before Udai Singh II founded Udaipur beside it in the sixteenth century and had it enlarged. That matters practically as well as historically: it is an artificial lake in a dry state, its level depends heavily on the monsoon, and in bad years it has fallen far enough that boat operations stopped.

The last hour of daylight, when the City Palace facade takes the low light off the water — which is why that slot costs more and sells out. Shared boats leave from Rameshwar ghat inside the palace complex and the round trip is about an hour. Early morning is the quiet alternative and shows the ghats in genuine use.

Not as a visitor. Jag Niwas and Jag Mandir, the two buildings out in the water, both operate as hotels and access is limited to guests and to people with a dining reservation. The boat trip passes close to both, which is how almost everyone sees them, and that is the realistic expectation to arrive with.

Length. The facade runs nearly a quarter of a kilometre along the eastern shore and was built up by successive Mewar rulers from 1559 rather than to a single plan. From the street you see gates and sections; from the water it resolves into one continuous building, which is the thing that makes Udaipur look the way it does in photographs.