From Delhi: Jaipur Day Trip By Private Car

Five or six in the morning, and it is not negotiable

Delhi to Jaipur is 270 km. Leaving at five puts you past Gurugram before it wakes and at Amber Fort by ten, which is the last hour its courtyards are pleasant. Leaving at eight costs you both ends of the day.

There is a stop midway in each direction.

Amber Fort

Your guide meets you here. Begun in 1592 by Raja Man Singh, Akbar's general, on a ridge above Maota Lake — a Rajput fort built with Mughal craftsmen, which is why Persian inlay sits beside Hindu carving.

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

Jal Mahal

A photo stop on the causeway. Four of its five storeys sit under Man Sagar Lake and there is no way in — no boat, no ticket, whatever you are offered at the roadside.

City Palace

Still partly the residence of the former royal family, with the armoury, the textile galleries and the two enormous silver urns cast so a maharaja could take Ganges water to England.

Jantar Mantar

Nineteen masonry astronomical instruments from the 1730s, UNESCO-listed, with a 27-metre sundial still accurate to about two seconds.

Hawa Mahal

The five-storey screen of 953 windows, from the street opposite.

Two options

Car, driver and guide; or the same with lunch and all monument entrances — about ₹1,500 a head for a foreign adult if you pay separately.

Practical

Fourteen hours door to door, of which nine are road. If you have a spare night, staying over in Jaipur is a better trip; if not, this works.