Jaipur: Full-Day Sightseeing Guided Tour By Car with Guide

Ten hours instead of six

The standard Jaipur day gives Amber Fort ninety minutes and the old city two hours. This one runs long enough to actually sit down inside the places rather than move through them, and long enough to add a fort on the ridge at the end.

Amber Fort

First, before the coaches. Begun in 1592 by Raja Man Singh in pale sandstone and marble on a hillside above Maota Lake.

The Ganesh Pol is the painted gateway that everyone photographs. Behind it the Sheesh Mahal, where thousands of convex mirror fragments were set so that a single candle would read as a ceiling of stars. The Sukh Niwas across the courtyard was cooled by water running in channels through its walls.

With time, the zenana courtyard is worth the walk: twelve queens' apartments arranged around a single yard with corridors placed so that the maharaja could visit one without any of the others knowing.

Jal Mahal

A stop on the causeway. There is no boat and no entry, whatever you are offered at the roadside.

City Palace

Still partly the residence of the former royal family — the flag flying over Chandra Mahal means they are in. The two silver urns in the Diwan-i-Khas are the largest silver objects in the world, made so a maharaja could carry Ganges water to England.

Jantar Mantar

Nineteen stone instruments, UNESCO-listed. The 27-metre Samrat Yantra sundial is accurate to about two seconds, and the instruments that read the position of the planets still work.

Hawa Mahal

The 953-window facade, best photographed from the street opposite in the morning.

Three options

Guide only, if you have your own car. Private car, driver and guide. Or the full version with lunch and all entrance tickets — about ₹1,500 a head in fees for a foreign adult.

Practical

Start early. Amber Fort at nine is a completely different building from Amber Fort at noon.