Rajasthan Royal Cities, Slowly — Jaipur, Jodhpur & Udaipur in Six Nights

Met at Jaipur airport or station and settled in before anything is asked of the day. In the late afternoon a walk through the 1727 grid with a guide who reads the city rather than lists it — the bazaars by trade, the Hawa Mahal from the street as the light leaves it, the Tripolia gate — and then dinner. The City Palace and the Jantar Mantar are held for tomorrow rather than squeezed into an arrival, which is the first of the differences between this route and the five-night version. · Jaipur · Private car

At the Amber gate for the eight o'clock opening with a private guide, so the Diwan-i-Khas and the Sheesh Mahal are seen before the coaches climb the hill, and Jaigarh above it by the walled path while the courtyards below fill. The City Palace and the Jantar Mantar after, at the centre of the grid, with the great sundial keeping time to two seconds. The afternoon goes thirty kilometres west to Bagru, where families have block-printed cotton with vegetable dyes for three centuries — an afternoon at the tables with the printers, not a showroom — and back for the Nahargarh sunset if the day allows it. · Amber · Bagru · Jaipur · overnight Jaipur · Private car

The one long road on the route, about five and a half hours west, broken where the traveller wants it — Pushkar's ghats and Brahma temple a little off the line, or the Ajmer dargah, or neither. Into Jodhpur by mid-afternoon with nothing scheduled but the view: the old city below Mehrangarh is painted a deep indigo, and it is best seen first from above at the end of the day, from Jaswant Thada's marble terrace or from the fort ramparts as the lights come on. Dinner in the old city. · Jaipur to Jodhpur · overnight Jodhpur · Private car · 5.5 hrs

Mehrangarh at nine, when it opens — begun in 1459, standing 120 m above the city on a sheer rock, never taken by siege, with the marks of the 1808 cannonade still in the gate and a museum of palanquins, howdahs and Marwar painting that is the best of its kind in the state. Two hours with a guide before the crowd. Then south onto the open plain for the day in the Bishnoi villages: a community that has protected trees and blackbuck for five hundred years, and whose potters, weavers and opium-tea ceremonies are shown in their own courtyards rather than staged. Blackbuck and chinkara on the plain are near certain; the light at the end of the afternoon is the reason to stay late. Umaid Bhawan's museum on the way back if there is time. · Jodhpur · Bishnoi villages · overnight Jodhpur · Private car · jeep

South through the Aravallis, about three hours to Ranakpur, where a Jain temple begun in 1439 stands in pale marble on 1,444 columns, no two carved alike — non-Jain visitors are admitted from noon, which is when this road arrives, and an hour inside is right. Then the loveliest two hours of driving in Rajasthan, over the hills and down to Udaipur, arriving by late afternoon. Down to Gangaur Ghat as the lamps go on, and dinner above the lake. · Jodhpur to Udaipur · overnight Udaipur · Private car · 5 hrs

The City Palace in the morning with a guide — the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, a facade nearly a quarter of a kilometre long above Pichola, the Mor Chowk mosaics and the Crystal Gallery — and the Jagdish temple at its gate. The afternoon is the traveller's: Saheliyon ki Bari, the miniature-painting workshops, or the hotel. In the late afternoon a private boat leaves the City Palace jetty for the sunset circuit past the Lake Palace and around Jag Mandir, and the evening is dinner on the island terrace, reached by the palace launch, arranged for this night unless the weather says otherwise. · Udaipur · Private car · boat

A last morning at the pace the week has set. The Monsoon Palace on its ridge is the early option, the lakeside at Fateh Sagar the gentler one. Udaipur's airport is about half an hour east of the city, so a midday flight is comfortable; couples with a night in hand often add it here rather than anywhere else on the route. · Udaipur · Private car