City Palace, Udaipur

Udaipur’s main attraction, in my eyes, is it’s City Palace. Wow, what an enormous complex with a rich history and heritage!!!

From Wikipedia:

“City Palace, Udaipur, is a palace complex in the Indian state Rajasthan. It was built by the Maharana Udai Singh in 1559. It is located on the east bank of the Lake Pichola and has several palaces built within its complex. Udaipur was the historic capital of the former kingdom of Mewar in the Rajputana Agency and its last capital.
The City Palace in Udaipur was built in a flamboyant style and is considered the largest of its type in Rajasthan, a fusion of the Rajasthani and Mughal architectural styles, and was built on a hill top that gives a panoramic view of the city and its surrounding, including several historic monuments such as the Lake Palace in Lake Pichola, the Jag Mandir on another island in the lake, the Jagdish Temple close to the palace, the Monsoon Palace on top of an overlooking hillock nearby and the Neemach Mata temple. These structures are linked to the filming of the James Bond movie Octopussy, which features the Lake Palace and the Monsoon Palace. The subsequent publicity has resulted in the epithet of Udaipur as “Venice of the East”. In 2009, Udaipur was rated the top city in the World’s Best Awards by Travel + Leisure.”

What a glorious sight, lit up by the sunlight!

It is in fact not one palace, but a group of palaces within the walls.

It reminds me indeed of Venice or Amsterdam.

You go through a gate, then walk up a lane, get to another gate, etcetera…

It is as magnificent as it is huge!

I will not say it is well-maintained, but fortunately enough of it’s beauty is preserved or restored and still to be seen.

See the elephant consoles, holding the balconies?

And a splendid….what is it? A sungod? A Buddha?

Tiger cage, sort of a XXL mousetrap.

I wonder if they ever caught a tiger with this thing. I hope that they would have at least hidden it well then, because it is quite visible for the tiger. Then again, being in favor of the tiger, I hope they never caught anything;-).

Before we go inside, let’s find out who lived or lives there.
As I explained in my post about the Rambagh Palace from Jaipur, heritage like this often still is in the hands of the descendants of the Maharaja’s that built them. Usually they live in one of their properties or in a part of their palace, while they have opened the rest to the public. They need the income from tourism to be able to maintain all this. The Mewar Maharajah has initiated a foundation to manage this complex, it’s hotels and it’s musea.
He feels a responsibility towards his heritage, but also to the environment and to the people that used to be ‘his people’ (as in a king’s subjects).

In the Durbar Hall, one of the musea within these palace walls, we can see portraits of this family throughout the centuries:

The gallery all around this impressive hall ( on the first floor) is completely filled with a gigantic collection of rare crystal items. You will not believe your eyes.

Some generations back.

The daughter of the present Maharaja (with her husband).

Now that we have an idea of who owns all this, let is have a look inside the buildings.

Then there are more gates, leading to courtyards, buildings, galleries and squares. The whole complex is quite labyrinthic, with small stairs, corridors, splitlevels and so on, Done for a reason, since this would confuse possible enemies or intruders.

A lovely elevated garden.

High up open square with nice decorations and gorgeous views.

Here and there spaces are converted into hotels, restaurants and so on. Hence the funny parasols.

This courtyard and the buildings around it are beautiful! Very richly decorated.

The palace walls are abundantly decorated with the typical Rajasthani murals that we saw in e.g. Pushkar too.

And good to see that they are being renovated.

Look what he has done in a couple of hours!

The courtyards and galleries lead to rooms of various looks, sizes and functions. This is a room with a horse with an elephant mask? Why?

And a room with bird keeping equipment.

There are rooms with colored glass….

…and with mirror walls and ceilings

….rooms with walls from hammered metal plate material…

There are a lot of wonderful tiles and mosaics.

Want, want, want!!!

And again: want, want, want!!!

And again: …want, etc.

There are pink rooms,….

…blue rooms,….

…rooms with a royal swing….

…green rooms….

…white- red rooms…with wheelchair for the Maharaja.

There are images of the Sun God.

Also on the ceiling.

As you can imagine, there are great views from all sides.

View over Lake Pichola and you can just see the Taj Lake Palace Hotel.

Isn’t it spectacular? We loved it! The Durbar Hall and the Crystal Gallery are not to be missed either.

We say goodbye to this magnificent palace with a picture of it by night.