Jaipur: Amer fort, Hawa Mahal and Jal Mahal Tour

The three buildings everyone comes to Jaipur for.

Amer Fort is the reason to be here. Built from 1592 in pale yellow and pink sandstone above Maota Lake, it is a fort on the outside and a palace within, and the scale only registers once you are inside the courtyards. The Sheesh Mahal, the mirror palace, is the piece people remember: thousands of convex mirror tiles set into the walls and ceiling so that a single candle flame multiplies across the whole room. Your guide will show you the Ganesh Pol gateway, the Sukh Niwas with its water-cooled channels, and the sheer engineering of getting water up a hill in the sixteenth century.

Hawa Mahal, the Palace of Winds, is the five-storey pink façade with 953 windows, built in 1799 so the women of the royal household could watch street processions unseen. Most visitors photograph it from across the road and move on, which is a shame, because going inside gives you the view out through those windows and a much better sense of what the building was for.

Jal Mahal sits in the middle of Man Sagar Lake. You cannot go in, and the tour does not pretend otherwise: it is a stop for the view, and at the right hour with the Nahargarh hills behind it, that view earns the ten minutes.

Included

Hotel or airport pickup and drop-off, private AC car with driver for the whole day, professional guide, bottled water, tolls and parking. Monument entry is a checkout option.

Worth knowing

Who it suits

First-time visitors to Jaipur, and anyone who would rather see three things properly than six in passing.