Project Asia · India
Where to stay · 14 palaces
In India you can sleep where the maharajas slept. Many of the palaces and forts of the royal families have become hotels: some are grand luxury hotels, others are family homes, where the descendants welcome guests as friends. It is one of the loveliest ways to experience the country: the painted halls, the courtyards, the terraces over lakes and deserts, and the history you can feel in every room.
Rajasthan · on Lake Pichola
The white palace that seems to float upon the water, built in the mid-eighteenth century by the Maharanas of Mewar as a summer residence. You arrive by boat, and from the terraces your gaze drifts across the lake, the ghats and the illuminated City Palace. It is the very image of palace India, and the setting of a celebrated James Bond film.
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Foto: RAAS HotelsRajasthan · in the Aravalli hills, at Delwara
An eighteenth-century fort-palace rising above the village of Delwara, in the hills north of Udaipur. For centuries the seat of the local rulers, it had fallen into ruin when it was restored and turned into a hotel of surprisingly contemporary style: white marble, clean lines and large, light-filled spaces within the ancient walls. From the terraces and the pool the view opens over the hills and the valley.
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Foto: Jakub Hałun / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Rajasthan · on Chittar Hill
One of the last great palaces built in India, between the 1920s and the 1940s, in golden sandstone, with a soaring dome and Art Deco interiors. Part of it is still the home of the royal family of Jodhpur, another part is a museum, and the rest is a hotel of great elegance looking out towards Mehrangarh Fort.
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Foto: RAAS HotelsRajasthan · in the old city, at the foot of Mehrangarh fort
An eighteenth-century haveli in the heart of the blue city, beside Toorji's stepwell, restored and turned into a hotel of modern design that keeps its carved stone panels and old shrines. Almost every room looks out at Mehrangarh fort, lit up above the city at night: you step out on foot into the lanes and bazaars, and come back to an oasis of quiet.
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Foto: Chainwit. / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Rajasthan · in the heart of Jaipur
Begun as a garden house in the nineteenth century, it became a hunting lodge and then the residence of the Maharajas of Jaipur. Today it is surrounded by vast Mughal gardens where peacocks stroll, with salons, terraces and verandas that tell the story of twentieth-century court life.
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Foto: Bernard Gagnon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0Telangana · on a hill above the city
The “mirror of the sky” palace, built at the end of the nineteenth century and later the residence of the Nizams of Hyderabad. It has crystal chandeliers, a library with a walnut ceiling and a dining hall with an extraordinarily long table, where you can still dine as guests of the Nizam. An India quite different from that of Rajasthan.
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Foto: Walter Schärer / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0Rajasthan · at the foot of the Aravalli Hills
A sixteenth-century Rajput fort that became a palace in the nineteenth century, in a village an hour from Jaipur. It is famous for its frescoed audience hall and for the Sheesh Mahal, the hall of mirrors, among the most beautiful in Rajasthan. Far from the city, it has all the stillness of the countryside.
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Rajasthan · on a granite hill between Delhi and Jaipur
A warrior fort built in the late eighteenth century on a spur of granite, standing guard over the kingdom of Jaipur. After a long restoration it has become a luxury hotel that keeps its thick walls, towers and original loopholes, with suites set within the old spaces of the fort and terraces open to the Aravalli countryside. It lies about an hour from Jaipur and makes an elegant stop on the road from Delhi.
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Rajasthan · between Jodhpur and Udaipur
A hunting retreat of the royal family of Jodhpur, at the foot of a great granite hill crowned by a stone elephant. It is an intimate place, gathered around its courtyards, in a countryside of leopards and Rabari herders. Here dinner is served by lantern light in an ancient stepwell.
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Foto: Vijay Mathiew / PexelsRajasthan · between Jaipur and Udaipur
The summer residence of the rulers of Shahpura, two palaces on a large estate of gardens and lakes. The family still lives here and welcomes just a few guests at a time, as in a private home. All around lie wetlands full of birds and the studios of the Phad painters, the great painted scrolls of Rajasthan.
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Foto: pierre matile / PexelsRajasthan · between Jodhpur and Udaipur
A three-hundred-year-old fort palace, home to the same Rajput family for ten generations. The hospitality is genuine and warmly familial, with very few suites, the countryside all around, the Rabari herders and the salt pans at sunset. Ranakpur, with its great Jain temple, is close by.
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Foto: Neeraj Anoop / PexelsKerala · on the backwaters of Ernakulam
The residence where the Rajas of Kochi stayed when they came to worship at the family temple next door. It has very few rooms and is reserved for a single party at a time: the whole house, with its cook and staff, becomes yours. A rare experience, held entirely between the water and the temple.
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Foto: Timothy A. Gonsalves / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Kerala · at the foot of the Western Ghats
A palace of the Kollengode family transformed into an Ayurvedic retreat, in the Palakkad countryside, along the course of the Nila river. Guests come here for a genuine cure of at least two weeks, with doctors, yoga and a cuisine designed around the treatment, in the calm of a Kerala palace.
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Foto: Deepank Ranka / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Ladakh · above the Indus valley
The nineteenth-century palace of the royal family of Ladakh, where the family still lives and opens a few rooms to guests in summer. From the windows you look out over the Indus valley and, opposite, the snow-capped mountains. Beside the palace, the family also has a few villas among the apricot orchards.
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