Palaces & Havelis

Gwalior

Jai Vilas Palace

A 19th-century Scindia palace and museum famed for its durbar hall.

Chittorgarh Fort

Padmini Palace

The historic lakeside palace structure built for Queen Padmini, featuring white walls enclosed beautifully by a water moat reservoir.

Jodhpur, Rajasthan

Umaid Bhawan Palace

Mysuru (Mysore Palace)

Mysore Palace (Amba Vilas)

The grand three-story royal palace featuring intricately carved mahogany ceilings, stained-glass pavilions, and rare weapon museums.

Udaipur

City Palace

The largest palace complex in Rajasthan, built over nearly four hundred years by successive Mewar rulers. Udai Singh II began it in 1553, when he moved his capital from Chittor to the new city of Udaipur, and every ruler after him added to it — which is why it reads as a run of connected palaces rather than one building. It stands on a ridge on the east bank of Lake Pichola, so the courtyards look down onto the water and across to the island palaces. Glass and mirror work, mosaic courtyards and the Mewar collection are inside; boats to Jag Mandir leave from below it.

Bundi

Bundi Palace & Chitrashala

The Chitrashala is an open courtyard gallery of Bundi-school murals, mostly Krishna scenes, in blue and green. It has its own entrance and is often unattended. The palace above is largely unrestored and overgrown.

Kochi (Fort Kochi)

Mattancherry Palace

A historic palace built by the Portuguese and renovated by the Dutch, housing rare multi-century old murals detailing the Ramayana.

Bengaluru (Bangalore)

Bangalore Palace

A Tudor-style royal palace with grand interiors and grounds.

Thanjavur (Brihadeeswarar Temple)

Thanjavur Royal Palace Complex

The historic palace quarter located nearby, hosting the legendary Saraswathi Mahal Library filled with rare palm-leaf manuscripts and ancient art collections.

Mandvi Beach (Kutch)

Vijay Vilas Palace

A royal seaside palace near Mandvi beach.

Jaisalmer

Patwon-ki-Haveli

A cluster of five historic merchant mansions exhibiting incredibly fine honey-colored stone lattice window screens and painted ceiling murals.

Bhuj

Prag Mahal

Italian Gothic in red sandstone, finished in 1879 and badly shaken by the 2001 earthquake — parts are still unrepaired. The clock tower can be climbed for the view over Bhuj.

Bhuj

Aina Mahal

The palace of mirrors, built around 1750 for Rao Lakhpatji of Kutch. His master craftsman Ram Singh Malam had trained abroad and came back to build in the local idiom but finish it in glass, mirror and tile — the Hall of Mirrors, the Pleasure Hall and the state apartments on the first floor, the durbar and marriage halls above. It is a museum now, and the oddest thing in it is the Europeanerie collection Lakhpatji accumulated: clocks, wares, mechanical toys and European paintings, all shipped into a desert court. It stands beside Prag Mahal in the Darbargadh.

Orchha

Jahangir Mahal

Built for a single visit by Jahangir, who is said to have stayed one night in it. Three storeys of chambers and terraces around a courtyard, and you can walk almost all of it unsupervised, which is rare for a building this size.

Jaipur

Hawa Mahal

Built in 1799 by Sawai Pratap Singh in red and pink sandstone, on the edge of the City Palace and joined to the zenana, the women's quarters. Its nine hundred and fifty-three lattice windows — jharokhas — let the women of the household watch processions in the street below without being seen, and the honeycomb of openings pulls air through the building, which is what keeps it bearable in a Jaipur summer. The famous view is from outside, facing east: go before nine, while the sun is on the front. Inside it is narrow ramps and small chambers, and much less than the facade promises.

Pune

Aga Khan Palace

A grand palace and Gandhi national memorial set in gardens.

Jamnagar

Lakhota Palace and Museum

A semicircular fort on an island in Ranmal lake, built in the nineteenth century as famine relief so that people had wages. It is a museum now — Saurashtra pottery, an old armoury — reached by a stone causeway.

Gondal

Naulakha Palace

The oldest surviving palace in Gondal, dating to 1748 and the reign of Haloji Sagramji, inside the Darbargadh fort complex. The name means nine lakh — what it cost to build. Carved jharokha balconies, a pillared courtyard, delicately cut arches and a spiral staircase that is the thing most people photograph. The durbar hall is lit by chandeliers and still holds gilt wooden furniture, antique mirrors and stuffed panthers, which age badly as a display. The private museum keeps the silver caskets sent to Maharaja Bhagwat Sinhji for his silver jubilee.

Vadodara

Laxmi Vilas Palace

Commissioned in 1878 by Sayajirao Gaekwad III and finished in 1890 to designs by the British architects Charles Mant and Robert Chisholm, named for Sayajirao's first wife Lakshmibai. The grounds run to more than five hundred acres, which makes it the largest private residence in the world, and it is still the home of the Gaekwad family. The style is Indo-Saracenic: Indo-Islamic massing with Renaissance detail. It cost six million rupees, and had indoor lifts and its own telephone exchange when it opened. Part of it is open to visitors; the rest is a house.

Leh, Leh & Ladakh

Leh Palace

Bikaner

Rampuria Haveli Cluster

A street of merchant mansions in red Dulmera sandstone, late nineteenth century, carved front to back. Most are still lived in or shut up, so this is a walk past facades rather than a tour — go with someone from the old city.

Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh

Madan Mahal Fort

Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir

Mubarak Mandi Palace

Karnataka

Mysuru (Mysore Palace)

Mysuru is a small, orderly, easy city, and it has the one palace in India that is worth seeing lit up. Mysore Palace switches its exterior lights on for a short window on Sunday evenings and through Dasara — around a hundred thousand bulbs on the outline of the building. Check the current timings locally, because they change, and be there before it happens rather than after. Inside, the Durbar Hall and the marriage pavilion are the rooms to slow down in. Photography is not allowed in the interior and shoes come off at the entrance. Chamundi Hill above the city is the standard sunset trip. The steps up — around a thousand of them — are a better way to arrive than the road, and the Nandi bull two-thirds of the way up is the reason to walk rather than drive. Devaraja Market is the working market: flowers by the kilo, sandalwood, bananas in a dozen varieties. Go in the morning while it is being restocked. Dasara in September or October is the city at full volume, with a caparisoned elephant procession. It is also when every room is booked. October to February otherwise.

Neemrana, Rajasthan

Neemrana Fort Palace

Chamba, Himachal Pradesh

Rang Mahal (Chamba Fort Palace)

Shey, Leh & Ladakh

Shey Palace

Stok, Leh & Ladakh

Stok Palace

Tripura

Ujjayanta Palace (Agartala)

Ujjayanta Palace in Agartala is the former royal residence of the princely rulers of Tripura and today the state museum. Built in the early 20th century in a grand Indo-Saracenic style, it stands amid Mughal-style gardens and pools and brings out the culture, history and communities of the northeast.

Hyderabad, Telangana

Falaknuma Palace