Udaipur Honeymoon — Three Nights on the Lakes

Met at Udaipur airport, about half an hour east of the city, and taken to a hotel chosen for its view of the water. The afternoon is deliberately empty until the late-afternoon boat, the last departure from the City Palace jetty and the one that carries the sunset circuit of Pichola — past the Lake Palace on its island, around Jag Mandir, and back as the palace facade turns gold and the Aravallis go dark behind it. This is the reason people come to Udaipur and it belongs on the first evening, not the last, so that the rest of the stay is spent knowing the shape of the lake. Dinner at a rooftop above Gangaur Ghat, with the whole scene lit below.

The City Palace in the morning — the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, built up by successive Mewar rulers from 1559 into a single facade nearly a quarter of a kilometre long above Pichola, with the Mor Chowk peacock mosaics and the Crystal Gallery inside. Two to three hours is right; the Jagdish temple of 1651 is at its gate. The afternoon is a rest, or Saheliyon ki Bari's fountains and marble pavilions, or the miniature-painting workshops in the lanes below the palace. Bagore ki Haveli on Gangaur Ghat in the evening, where the folk dance performance in the courtyard starts at seven and is the one show in Rajasthan worth planning around.

One day out, and one that does not need an early start. North about an hour and a half to Kumbhalgarh, the fifteenth-century fort whose perimeter wall runs 36 km across the hills — the second longest continuous wall in the world — with the palace at the top of the citadel and the view worth the climb. Then an hour down 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 exactly when this day arrives. Back into Udaipur by late afternoon, in time for the Monsoon Palace on its ridge west of the city for the last sunset — the road up takes twenty minutes and the lakes lie gold below.

A slow breakfast with the lake in front of you, then whatever the stay has left: the vintage car collection, a walk to Gangaur Ghat at the hour when the washing is being done, or nothing at all. Udaipur's airport is about half an hour east, so a midday flight is comfortable and an evening one leaves the whole day. For couples with a night to spare, the Jag Mandir dinner — a table on the island terrace, reached by the palace launch — is arranged for whichever evening the weather favours, and is the one thing here we would add before anything else.