The honest picture
A working town: Chittorgarh is a market and railway junction, with cement works and traffic on the plains below the fort.
Why no grand hotels: most visitors come for the day and leave, so the town never developed hotels like those of Udaipur or Jaipur.
- Country castle
- Castle Bijaipur, our favourite
- In town
- Simple, clean hotels
- Udaipur
- Lake palaces, about two hours away
- Why stay nearby
- The fort at dawn and at sunset
- What there is: comfortable hotels for business travellers and pilgrims, and a few that call themselves heritage hotels.
- What is missing: the setting, service and sense of occasion most of our guests expect from a luxury stay.
- Still, stay nearby: the fort is finest in the first hour of the morning and the last of the evening, when the stone glows and the plateau is quiet.
- What day visitors miss: they usually arrive from Udaipur mid-morning and leave before sunset, so they miss both.
- The countryside: it holds some of the most charming family-run heritage hotels in Mewar.
- The fort itself: read our main Chittorgarh guide.
Castle Bijaipur, our favourite base
- Built
- Sixteenth century
- Distance
- About 40 km from the fort, about an hour
- Setting
- Below the Vindhyan hills
- Opened to guests
- 1991, by the owning family
- Kitchen
- Mewari home food
The castle and its family
Its history: a castle of a family of Mewar nobles, in the village of Bijaipur. The owning family still lives in the grounds.
The way in: a gateway into a courtyard garden of lawns and old trees, with rooms around it and a pool beyond.
- The rooms: individually furnished in a simple, colourful heritage style, with painted walls, local fabrics and old furniture. Some look over the hills and the village.
- What it is not: a polished palace hotel, and it does not try to be one.
- What it offers: warmth, space and calm, and the feeling of staying in a lived-in Rajput home.
What to do while you are there
Slow down: walk through the village and fields, go birdwatching around the nearby lakes, take a jeep or a horse into the countryside, or read by the pool.
Mornings: yoga is often offered.
- Further afield: the family can arrange visits to nearby forts and temples, and to Bassi, where carpenters make the painted wooden story-shrines called kavad.
- Meals: a highlight, with vegetables from the area, and the owners often join guests at dinner.
- Order local: ask about local dishes rather than the continental menu, and you will eat very well.
Who Bijaipur suits
Suits: history lovers, families with children who need space to run, and anyone who wants to see Chittorgarh properly at dawn and dusk.
- On the way east: travellers heading to Bundi and Hadoti, as it breaks the journey beautifully.
- Suits less well: guests who need full five-star service, a large spa or a choice of restaurants.
- Rooms vary: we choose yours carefully.
Other heritage stays within reach
- Bhainsrorgarh
- Roughly two hours or more east
- Bassi
- North-east of Chittorgarh
- Deogarh Mahal
- About three hours north
- Bundi
- About three hours north-east
Bhainsrorgarh Fort, above the Chambal
The setting: a fort of the Mewar nobility on a high promontory, looking down from sheer cliffs where the Chambal runs between them.
The hotel: the family who live there opened it to guests in the mid-2000s, with only a handful of rooms.
- Why go: one of the most dramatically sited hotels in Rajasthan, with boat rides on the river and walks along the gorge.
- How to use it: it lies in Chittorgarh district but well east of the fort, so it works best as a stop towards Bundi or Kota.
- Nearby: the carved early medieval temples at Baroli, among the finest in the region. Read about Hadoti.
A small fort at Bassi
What: an old fort in the village of Bassi, opened to guests as a simple heritage hotel.
- Why: less polished than Bijaipur, but in the village of the kavad makers and close to the Bassi wildlife sanctuary.
- Who for: travellers who love simple places with character. We check its current standard before we book.
Deogarh Mahal, further north
What: a seventeenth-century palace of one of the great noble families of Mewar, above the town of Deogarh.
- The feel: grander than Bijaipur, with painted rooms and a lively family atmosphere.
- On the route: it fits naturally between Jaipur, Chittorgarh and Udaipur. Read about Deogarh.
The havelis of Bundi
What: small heritage havelis in the lanes below the palace of Bundi.
- Why: travelling from Chittorgarh towards Hadoti, a night or two in Bundi is one of the great pleasures of Rajasthan.
- More: our guide to Bundi heritage havelis.
Staying in Chittorgarh town
The range: business hotels near the highway, and a few older properties in a heritage style, with arches, courtyards and rooftop views of the fort.
At their best: clean and comfortable, and some have pools and decent restaurants.
- Hotel types
- Business hotels, heritage-style properties
- Some have
- Pools and decent restaurants
- Best for
- Opening time, the evening show, two full days
- Food
- Often vegetarian; alcohol not everywhere
- Honestly: service and maintenance vary, and none has the character of a true heritage hotel or the polish of a modern luxury one.
- When we suggest it: to be at the fort at opening, to stay for the evening light and sound show, or to spend two full days on the plateau.
- How we book: a hotel we have inspected recently, and we tell you honestly what to expect.
- Food and drink: vegetarian food is the norm in many hotels here, as in much of Mewar, and alcohol may not be served everywhere.
- For photographers and historians: be among the first through the gates, when the light is soft on the Vijay Stambha and the plateau belongs to the crows and the wind.
- When the light is best: our best time to visit Chittorgarh guide explains.
Staying in Udaipur and visiting for the day
Easy with a car: a private car and driver make the day trip simple, and you still sleep in luxury.
- Drive
- About two hours by expressway
- Driving time
- About four hours a day
- Leave
- Early, with a breakfast box
- Return
- Late afternoon, in time for dinner
- Trade-off
- You miss the very best light
- Worth it for many: for others, especially photographers, we suggest one night at Bijaipur before returning to Udaipur.
- Compare them all: our guide to luxury hotels in Udaipur.
Taj Lake Palace
- What: the eighteenth-century summer palace on its own island in Lake Pichola, reached only by the hotel's boats.
- After the plateau: crossing the still water to its marble courtyards after a long, dusty day is a reward in itself.
The Oberoi Udaivilas and The Leela Palace
Where: two grand hotels on the western shore of Pichola, looking back at the City Palace.
- The Oberoi Udaivilas: known for its space, gardens and service.
- The Leela Palace Udaipur: known for its grand lake-view rooms.
Raffles Udaipur, closest to the Chittorgarh road
Where: a private island in Udai Sagar, on the eastern side of Udaipur.
- Why: a little closer to the Chittorgarh road and the airport than the hotels on Pichola.
- Who for: guests who want seclusion and a quieter, garden setting.
The City Palace hotels
- What: Shiv Niwas Palace and Fateh Prakash Palace, inside Udaipur's City Palace.
- Why: built by the same Sisodia dynasty that once ruled from Chittor. Staying there after a day at the old capital closes the circle of the story.
What a family-run castle is really like
Old walls: thick, with rooms rarely identical and bathrooms fitted into spaces never designed for them.
Stairs: steep and uneven, and lifts are rare.
Power and water: reliable at the better places, but in the countryside a short power cut is not unusual, and a generator will start up.
- Rooms
- Rarely identical
- Lifts
- Rare; expect stairs
- Power
- Short cuts possible; generators
- Dinner
- A set menu, cooked fresh
- The menu: usually set, cooked fresh for that night's guests rather than chosen from a long card.
- The family: owners are often descended from the people who built the castle, and know its stories, its ghosts and its battles.
- Heirlooms: you may be shown old photographs, weapons, or the room where a grandmother kept her jewellery.
- The staff: often from the village, and with the family for decades.
- The nights: quiet, with bright stars, and a dawn chorus of peacocks and parakeets better than any alarm.
- Read more: our journal pieces on heritage hotels explained, staying with a royal family and what a rawla and thikana are.
What a country base gives you
The land: flat, open farming country, broken by low rocky hills and lakes.
In winter: fields green with wheat, mustard and gram.
Poppies: in some villages, grown under government licence for the medicine trade, flowering white and mauve in late winter.
- Bassi
- Kavad painters, wildlife sanctuary
- Nagari
- About 16 km north of Chittorgarh
- Menal and Bijolia
- Temples on the road to Bundi
- Sanwaliya Seth
- Mandaphiya, about 40 km away
- After the monsoon: the landscape turns green, and the tanks and lakes fill with water and birds.
- Bassi: dry forest and lakes in its small sanctuary.
- Nagari: one of the oldest towns in Rajasthan.
- Menal: temples beside their gorge, with the carved Jain and Hindu temples of Bijolia nearby.
- Sanwaliya Seth: the hugely popular Krishna temple, where farmers and traders offer a share of their earnings.
- Each one: our things to do in Chittorgarh guide covers them.
- Evenings a day trip cannot give: a village walk as the cows come home, sunset over the fields, dinner under the stars, and a night so quiet you hear the owls.
What staying close lets you see
At opening time
The seven gates: the zigzag road from Padan Pol to Ram Pol, with the memorials of Jaimal and Patta between them.
- Rana Kumbha's palace: the largest palace ruin on the plateau, roofless and atmospheric in low light.
- The Meera temple: where Meera Bai, who came to Chittor as a bride in 1516, is still remembered in song.
In the last hours of light
The Vijay Stambha: Rana Kumbha's nine-storey tower of victory after 1440, glowing orange in the low sun.
- The Kirti Stambha: the twelfth-century Jain tower of fame, quieter and finer in its carving.
- Padmini's palace: largely a nineteenth-century reconstruction, reflected in its tank at sunset.
- Gaumukh and the western ramparts: the spring-fed tank, then the sun going down over the plains.
Eating well near the fort
A set dinner: at Bijaipur and the other castles, dal, a seasonal vegetable, perhaps gatte ki sabzi or a mutton curry, rice and fresh breads, then a simple sweet.
Ask the family: for the dishes they eat themselves, some of the best home cooking of your journey.
- Castle dinners
- Set Mewari menus, often with the family
- On the fort
- Tea and snacks only
- In town
- Vegetarian thalis, kachori, sweets
- Day trips
- A breakfast box from Udaipur
- Where you eat: often together in a courtyard or on a terrace, with the owners joining the conversation.
- On the fort: little beyond tea and snacks from small stalls, so we bring a picnic or return to the hotel for lunch.
- In town: simple restaurants serve vegetarian thalis and local snacks, and the bazaar has sweet shops and kachori stalls.
- From Udaipur: a breakfast box for the drive, and lunch at a heritage hotel or in town.
- The dishes: our food of Udaipur guide explains the Mewari food you will meet.
Choosing the right base for you
History lovers and photographers: one or two nights at Castle Bijaipur, to see the fort at dawn and dusk.
Families with children: Castle Bijaipur, for its gardens, pool and space, and for the stories the family tells.
- Dawn and dusk
- Castle Bijaipur
- Full luxury
- Udaipur
- Towards Bundi
- Bijaipur or Bhainsrorgarh
- From Jaipur
- Deogarh Mahal
- Two plateau days
- Chittorgarh town
- Guests who want only true luxury: stay in Udaipur and visit as a long day trip with a private car.
- Travellers heading to Bundi and Kota: a night at Bijaipur, or at Bhainsrorgarh on the Chambal, to break the journey.
- Travellers coming from Jaipur: a night at Deogarh Mahal, then Chittorgarh on the way to Udaipur.
- Keen walkers spending two full days on the plateau: a carefully chosen hotel in Chittorgarh town.
- Pilgrims visiting Sanwaliya Seth and the fort: a hotel in town, which makes both easy.
A night near the fort, hour by hour
Afternoon, arrive in the countryside
The drive: leave Udaipur after lunch, arriving at Bijaipur in the late afternoon.
- Settle in: swim, then walk through the village with a guide as the cattle come home and the light turns gold.
- Evening: tea on the terrace, then dinner in the courtyard.
Dawn, the fort before the crowds
Very early: leave with a breakfast box to be at the gates as they open.
- In soft light: the seven gates, the palace of Rana Kumbha and the temples of Meera and Kumbha Shyam, with almost no one around.
- Before the heat: the Vijay Stambha.
Midday, rest
- Back at the castle: lunch and a rest through the hottest hours.
- Or on the plateau: a picnic in a shady spot and the Fateh Prakash museum.
Evening, the water palaces and the sunset
Late afternoon: Padmini's palace, Gaumukh Kund and the Kirti Stambha.
- Sunset: from the western ramparts.
- Then: dinner at Bijaipur, or on to Udaipur under the stars. Our Chittorgarh itinerary has longer plans.
Seasons, and when to book
Winter in a castle: warm, bright days, evenings cool enough for a fire, and a fort pleasant on foot.
Small hotels fill: we book Bijaipur and its neighbours several months ahead.
- October to March
- Castles at their best; book months ahead
- Busiest weeks
- Christmas, New Year, around Diwali
- April to June
- Stay in Udaipur, visit at dawn
- July to September
- Green countryside, slow roads
- Navratri
- Town hotels fill with pilgrims
- The hot months: fierce heat on the plains, and little shade on the fort. Udaipur's lakes and large pools help, with Chittorgarh in the very early morning, back by lunch.
- If you stay nearby in summer: choose a room with good air conditioning and rest through the afternoon.
- The monsoon: a night at Bijaipur with storm clouds over the Vindhyan hills is beautiful, and the fort is most dramatic on a cloudy day.
- Roads after rain: slow, so we leave extra time.
- Navratri: in autumn, crowds come to the Kalika Mata temple.
Where a Chittorgarh stay fits in your journey
From Udaipur: about two hours east, so the most common plan is a long day trip, or a single night at Bijaipur.
On to Bundi: about three hours north-east of the fort, so stopping at Chittorgarh turns a long drive into one of the richest days of the journey.
- From Udaipur
- About two hours east
- To Bundi
- About three hours north-east
- To Deogarh
- About three hours north
- Bijaipur to fort
- About an hour
- Offbeat Rajasthan: our journey links Chittorgarh with Bundi and Dungarpur this way.
- From Jaipur: break the drive to Udaipur at Chittorgarh, with a night at Bijaipur or Deogarh.
- Mewar Lakes and Temples: our journey brings together Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh and Ranakpur.
- For castle lovers: our heritage havelis trail.
- Whatever the route: we plan drives in daylight and keep the middle of the day for rest.
Practical notes
Book early: castle hotels are small, and a single wedding or group can fill them from October to March.
Navratri: busy at the Kalika Mata temple, and town hotels fill with pilgrims.
- Mobility: castle hotels often have stairs and uneven floors. Tell us your needs and we choose rooms accordingly.
- Pack: a torch for evening walks in the countryside, and a shawl for cold winter nights on the plains.
- Cash: for tips and small purchases in the villages, where cards may not be accepted.
- Alcohol: ask us in advance, as not every hotel in the area serves it.
- Read: our pages on getting around Rajasthan and money and tipping.
