From Delhi: Private Same Day Jaipur City Tour By Car

Six in the morning, and that is the point

Leave Delhi at six and you are through Gurugram before the traffic sets, on the expressway with an empty road, and standing at Amber Fort by ten. Leave at eight and you lose two hours to the city you are trying to get out of.

It makes for a fourteen-hour day. Everybody who has done both versions says the early one is right.

10:00 — Amber Fort

The hilltop complex above Maota Lake, begun in 1592. Courtyards stepping up the ridge, the Ganesh Pol gateway, and the Sheesh Mahal, whose mirrored ceiling was built so that one candle would fill the room with light.

There is a jeep up the ramp if you would rather not walk it. Elephant rides operate here and we do not book them — the animals work long days on hot stone, and a jeep does the same job.

12:00 — the city

Jal Mahal from the causeway, four of its five storeys underwater, a photo stop and nothing more.

City Palace, where Mughal and Rajput architecture meet across courtyards and where the former royal family still lives in part of the complex.

Jantar Mantar, the 18th-century stone observatory, UNESCO-listed, where the great sundial still reads to within a couple of seconds.

Hawa Mahal, the five-storey lattice of 953 windows — best from the street opposite, which is the angle it was designed to be seen from.

If there is time left, the bazaars around Johari and Tripolia: gem cutters, lac-bangle makers, block printers, all still working where the 1727 city plan put them.

Two options

Private car, driver and guide; or the same with lunch included.

Practical

Fourteen hours door to door, roughly eight of them in the car. Entrance fees are paid on the day — about ₹1,500 per foreign adult for the main sites.

If you have a spare night, staying over in Jaipur is a better trip than this one. If you do not, this works.