Jaipur: Private Half-Day City Tour with Hotel Transfers

The old city, without the drive out to Amber

This is the walled-city half of Jaipur: three monuments within a few hundred metres of each other, which means the time goes on the buildings rather than the road.

It suits an arrival afternoon, a departure morning, or a second day after the forts.

City Palace

Begun in 1729 by Jai Singh II at the centre of the city he was building, and part of it is still the royal family's residence — the flag over Chandra Mahal tells you whether they are in.

The courtyards are the point: Pritam Niwas Chowk with its four gates, each for a season and a Hindu deity, the peacock gate being the one everybody photographs.

The museums hold royal costumes — including the clothes of Madho Singh I, who was reportedly two metres tall and 250 kg — weapons, manuscripts and decorative objects. And in the Diwan-i-Khas, the two enormous silver urns: the largest silver objects in the world, made so Madho Singh II could carry Ganges water with him to England for Edward VII's coronation, because he would not drink anything else.

Jantar Mantar

Next door, and UNESCO-listed: nineteen masonry astronomical instruments built in the 1730s.

The Samrat Yantra is a 27-metre sundial still accurate to about two seconds. The Jai Prakash Yantra is a pair of hemispherical bowls sunk into the ground that map the sky. The Ram Yantra measures altitude and azimuth. Without a guide it is a field of odd shapes; with one it is an observatory.

Hawa Mahal

Five storeys, 953 windows, and less than a metre deep for most of its height — a screen built in 1799 so the women of the court could watch street processions without being seen from the road. Morning light is when it goes properly pink.

Practical

Private car, driver and English-speaking guide with hotel pickup and drop-off.

Entrance fees are paid at each site — City Palace and Jantar Mantar together run about ₹1,000 a head for a foreign adult.