Jaipur: Architecture, Culture & Scenic Viewpoints + Pick Up

For people who would rather photograph than queue

This route skips the monuments everyone lines up for and goes to the places that are actually worth a camera: symmetry, stepwells, painted gateways and ridge viewpoints.

It suits a second day in Jaipur, or a first day if you have already decided the forts are not for you.

Panna Meena ka Kund

A 16th-century stepwell below Amber, with criss-crossing symmetrical staircases descending eight storeys to the water. It was built so the village could reach water whatever the season, and the temperature at the bottom runs several degrees below the surface.

It photographs like an Escher drawing and it is nearly always quiet, because the coaches do not stop. You cannot go down to the water, and you should not try.

Patrika Gate

Nine painted arches at Jawahar Circle, every surface covered in murals of Rajasthan's regions — and the single most photographed spot in the city that is not a fort. Morning, before the queue of couples in matching outfits.

Gaitor ki Chhatriyan

The cremation ground of the Kachwaha maharajas: a walled garden of carved white marble cenotaphs at the foot of Nahargarh hill. Jai Singh II, who built the city and the observatory, is here. Almost nobody else is.

The viewpoints

The Aravalli ridge roads, with the whole grid of the walled city laid out below. Late afternoon the sandstone goes from pink to deep orange.

And the facades

Hawa Mahal from the street opposite in morning light, which is the hour it was designed to be seen in, and the painted gateways and havelis in the old city that nobody has restored and nobody photographs.

Practical

Four hours with hotel, airport or station pickup.

Most of these sites are free or a nominal fee, which is part of why the tour costs what it does.

Go early. Half of these locations only work in the first two hours of light.