From Delhi: All-Inclusive Rajasthan Heritage Tour by Car

Rajasthan's three big cities in four days

This skips Agra entirely and runs straight into Rajasthan — Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur, which are the three that differ most from one another. Four days is tight for that; the distances are what make it so.

Jaipur

Amber Fort on its ridge above Maota Lake, begun 1592, with the Ganesh Pol gateway and the Sheesh Mahal where mirror fragments in the ceiling turned a single candle into a sky of stars.

Then the City Palace, still partly the royal family's residence; Jantar Mantar, nineteen masonry astronomical instruments with a sundial still accurate to about two seconds; and the Hawa Mahal, the 953-window screen of 1799.

Evenings in the bazaars — Johari for gemstones, Tripolia for lac bangles made over a flame while you watch.

Jodhpur

About 330 km west. Mehrangarh rises 120 metres straight off the rock, was never taken, and holds the best-run museum in Rajasthan. The cannonball scars on the second gate are from a Jaipur siege.

Below it, Jaswant Thada in marble thin enough that sunlight passes through, and the blue lanes around the clock tower — the colour was a lime-and-copper wash that kept termites out.

Udaipur

Another 250 km south, and the landscape lifts into the Aravallis as you go.

The City Palace runs most of a kilometre along Lake Pichola, built up in pieces by twenty-two rulers across four centuries. Jagdish Temple from 1651, up thirty-two steps past stone elephants. Saheliyon ki Bari, the fountain garden built for a queen's forty-eight attendants.

And a boat at sunset, which is the thing people describe when they get home.

Two options

Car and guiding, or the all-inclusive version with hotels and meals.

Practical

Around 1,100 km of driving across four days. It is a lot of road for the time; if you can take six days instead, do.

October to March is the season.