From Delhi: Jaipur 1- Day Trip by AC Car

Jaipur in a day from Delhi, by road

270 km each way on the NH-48, four to five hours in each direction with a break. An early start is what makes it work — the expressway is empty before seven and Gurugram is not after eight.

Amber Fort

The first stop, and the right one: it is eleven kilometres out of town and the last place you want to be in the middle of the afternoon.

Begun in 1592 by Raja Man Singh, Akbar's general, on a ridge above Maota Lake — which is why a Rajput fort carries Mughal inlay and Persian garden planning.

The painted Ganesh Pol gateway, with a screened gallery above from which the women of the court watched arrivals unseen. The Sheesh Mahal, set with thousands of convex mirror fragments so that one candle read as a ceiling full of stars. The Sukh Niwas, cooled by water running in channels cut through the marble.

The zenana courtyard held twelve queens' apartments, laid out so that none overlooked another.

Hawa Mahal

The Palace of Winds: 953 windows across five storeys, and barely a metre deep for most of its height. Built in 1799 so the women of the court could watch street processions without being seen from the road, with a lattice that accelerates airflow and cools the corridors behind.

City Palace

Begun in 1729 at the centre of the new city, and part of it is still the royal family's residence. The armoury, the textile galleries, and the two silver urns in the Diwan-i-Khas — the largest silver objects in the world, cast so a maharaja could carry Ganges water to England.

Jal Mahal

From the causeway. Four of five storeys underwater, and no entry.

Practical

Fourteen hours door to door, of which nine are road.

Entrance fees are paid at each site — about ₹1,500 a head for a foreign adult across the main monuments.

If you can spare a night, staying over in Jaipur is a better trip. If not, this works.