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The right royal experience

Add Jaipur to your bucket list for a royal rendezvous, just make sure the bucket is gold-plated

THEY CALL it the Pink City, but it really should be royal blue. Nowhere else in India does the heritage, over-the-top luxury and magnificence of royal life hit you like it does in Jaipur. The four-level presidential suite at the Raj Palace Hotel costs $45,000 per night and is the most expensive in the world. Udaipur has some classy heritage hotels, as does Jodhpur, but only in Jaipur do you find the kind of oasis-like tranquility and scale of royal ambition. The just-concluded Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) is the largest free festival of its kind in the world and this year attracted close to 70,000 people apart from police, organisers and attendant staff. Its venue, Diggi Palace, is in the heart of this overcrowded city, and yet can accommodate the masses in separate tented or covered areas for simultaneous sessions, stalls selling books to art and local products, a multiplicity of food stalls and al fresco cafes, information booths and everything else a festival of this magnitude requires. That still leaves areas where you can just sit and chill out, somewhat literally considering the weather. There are also, obviously, rooms and suites (70 of them) and guest areas, including the part where the erstwhile royal owner-family stay in, so it?s easy to imagine the scale and size of Jaipur?s heritage properties. Diggi Palace is set in 18 acres of expansive lawns and gardens, and just 100 m away is ear-splitting urban chaos, but none of it intrudes.

The original haveli, now restored, was built in 1727, the year Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh moved the royal capital from Amber to Jaipur and invited his nobles to build their homes in the Pink City. The most famous of these is Rambagh Palace, where the then Maharaja of Jaipur built his residential estate, set in 47 acres of gardens, lawns, polo grounds and a hunting lodge. Now run by the Taj, the magnificent palace has been carefully preserved. Widely considered to be one of the best hotels in the world, the first building on the site was a garden house built in 1835 for the nurse of prince Ram Singh II till Maharajah Sawai Man Singh II made Rambagh his principal residence and added a number of royal suites. The other famous heritage hotel is the Jai Mahal, which is more modest in area, occupying 18 acres of landscaped Mughal gardens. Known for its Indo-Saracen style of architecture, it blends opulence with comforts that is the essence of Rajasthan-type royal magnificence. Though it is located downtown close to the main shopping centre, this is again an oasis of tranquility. The latest addition, without any royal background, but with all the opulence and attention to local craftsmanship and heritage-type architecture, is the Oberoi Rajvilas, also rated as one of the best hotels in the world. This retreat that evokes princely Rajasthan with luxury villas and royal tents in a fort setting, is situated on 32 acres of gardens, flowering trees and cascading fountains. There is an ancient haveli on the premises, which has been carefully restored and local master artists have handpainted gold leaf murals and Mughal miniature paintings throughout the fort. If you want a right royal experience, add Jaipur to your bucket list, just make sure the bucket is gold-plated.

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First published on: 26-01-2014 at 03:36 IST
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