Two houses of one noble family
You spend two nights in the townhouse inside the pink walls, where you can walk to Hawa Mahal before sunrise and come home for breakfast. Then you drive an hour into the Aravallis for the country seat, where the silence after Jaipur's horns is almost startling.
A city on the plain: when Sawai Jai Singh II founded Jaipur in 1727, he moved his capital down from the hill fortress of Amer and laid out nine blocks and broad bazaars around his palace.
The nobles followed: each held a country estate, called a thikana, in return for loyalty and service, and each built a townhouse in the new city to attend the court.
- Nights
- Three: Jaipur 2, Samode 1
- Pace
- Two nights in the walled city, one in the hills
- Best months
- October to March
- Good for
- A first, unhurried look at the Pink City
- Starts
- Jaipur airport, or Delhi by road or train
- Ends
- Samode, then Jaipur airport, Shekhawati or Delhi
- The Nathawats of Samode: a branch of the ruling Kachwaha clan, and among the most powerful of those families.
- At the top of Jaipur politics: Rawal Berisal signed the treaty of 1818 with the British East India Company on the Maharaja's behalf.
- A prime minister: his descendant Rawal Sheo Singh served for years as prime minister of the state, and spent his wealth on the family's two houses.
- In the city: he built Samode Haveli.
- In the hills: he added the great painted Durbar Hall to the old fort at Samode and made it the palace we see today.
- Still the family's: they own and run both as hotels, which is why this journey uses them.
- As the nobles saw it: the court and the bazaar, then the land and the village.
- Every sight at its hour: three nights lets Amber fall at opening time, the Jantar Mantar at noon, the City Palace in late afternoon and Nahargarh at sunset.
- And a rest after lunch: the way our grandparents always did.
Three nights, day by day
- Airport to walled city
- About half an hour
- Delhi to Jaipur
- About 280 km, four to five hours
- Fast train from Delhi
- A little over four hours
- Jaipur to Amer
- About 11 km, 20-30 minutes early
- Jaipur to Samode
- About 40 km, an hour via Chomu
- Samode to Shekhawati
- About three hours
Day 1: arrive, and the City Palace in the afternoon light
Met on arrival: at Jaipur's airport at Sanganer, about half an hour from the walled city, or at Delhi airport if you are driving down, about four to five hours.
Or the fast train: from Delhi, a little over four hours.
Samode Haveli by lunch: from a busy lane into a quiet courtyard with a garden and a pool, and the city goes silent behind the gate. Eat, then rest.
- The City Palace at four: walk or take a rickshaw to the City Palace for the private tour of the Chandra Mahal, the seven-storeyed royal residence.
- Rooms most only glimpse: the tour takes you into gilded and mirrored rooms.
- Pritam Niwas Chowk: its four painted gates stand for the seasons, and the late sun brings out the blue and green of the Peacock Gate.
- The flag: on the Chandra Mahal it tells you whether the head of the family is at home.
- Isarlat before dark: climb the slender tower near Tripolia Gate for the whole grid of Jai Singh's city below.
- Dinner on the haveli terrace: then bed early, because tomorrow starts before seven.
Day 2: Amber at opening, then Jaigarh, Gaitore and Nahargarh
Leave at about seven: the drive north takes twenty to thirty minutes at that hour.
Jal Mahal: we stop for a few minutes at Jal Mahal on Man Sagar Lake while the water is still.
Amber as the gates open: walk up the old ramparts of Amber Fort or take a jeep to the upper gate. We don't book elephant rides.
- Two unhurried hours: Jaleb Chowk, the Diwan-i-Aam, the painted Ganesh Pol, the old palace of Raja Man Singh I and the Sheesh Mahal, whose mirrored ceilings turn one candle into a starry sky.
- Old Amer on foot: Panna Meena ka Kund, the stepwell whose criss-crossing stairs make a perfect geometric pattern.
- Then: the Jagat Shiromani temple and the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing in a restored haveli.
- Lunch and a proper rest: at Amer or back at the haveli.
- Jaigarh: in the late afternoon, drive up the ridge to Jaigarh for the Jaivana, the vast eighteenth-century cannon, and the view down onto Amber and Maota Lake.
- Nahargarh at sunset: follow the hill road to Nahargarh, with kites wheeling overhead and the evening call to prayer rising from the old city.
- Gaitore: on the way down, if there is still light, stop at the royal cenotaphs.
- Dinner: in a haveli courtyard lit by lanterns, with a family of folk musicians.
Day 3: the old city at dawn, the Jantar Mantar at noon, Samode by evening
Our favourite morning in Jaipur: start at sunrise at Hawa Mahal, built in 1799 so the women of the royal household could watch processions unseen, and climb inside while the street is asleep.
The bazaars as they open: with a guide who grew up in them.
Maniharon ka Rasta: families shape lac bangles over charcoal fires.
- Johari Bazaar: the jewellers' street, where the gem trade has lived since the city was built.
- On the way: pyaaz kachori and a clay cup of lassi.
- Jantar Mantar near midday: visit the Jantar Mantar when the sun is high and its instruments are easiest to read.
- The Samrat Yantra: a sundial about 27 metres tall, whose shadow you can watch moving across its scale.
- To Samode: after an early lunch, collect your bags and drive about an hour north-west through Chomu to Samode.
- The arrival: the village street climbs to a great gate, and the palace rises behind it in tiers, with the ruins of the old fort on the ridge above.
- Durbar Hall and Sheesh Mahal: explore them with a guide, then see the mirrored room again after dark in lamplight, the light it was made for.
- Dinner on a terrace: as the temple bells ring in the village below.
Day 4: Samode at sunrise, then onward
Up to the fort at first light: the stone path takes about twenty minutes at an easy pace.
The view: the palace roofs, the village waking, the fields and the long blue line of the Aravallis.
- Chai on the way down: the staff can have it waiting on a terrace.
- The village: after breakfast, walk it with a local guide, past the bangle sellers, the potters and the sweet-maker frying the morning's jalebis.
- Onward: back to Jaipur airport, about an hour and a half through the city, or north to the painted towns of Shekhawati, about three hours, or to Delhi in an easy day.
Why the order matters
Amber Fort at opening time: before the coaches arrive and while the courtyards are cool. By ten the ramps are crowded and the Sheesh Mahal has a queue.
Hawa Mahal at sunrise: when the morning sun falls full on the facade. By the afternoon it is in shadow and the street is solid with traffic.
The Jantar Mantar near midday: its instruments read the sun, and they work best when it is high and the shadows are sharp.
- Amber Fort
- Opening time
- Hawa Mahal
- Sunrise
- Jantar Mantar
- Near midday
- City Palace
- Late afternoon
- Nahargarh
- Sunset
- Bazaars
- About nine to eleven
- The City Palace in the late afternoon: when the light warms the painted gates of Pritam Niwas Chowk and the day visitors are leaving.
- Nahargarh at sunset: for the city turning from pink to gold and the lights coming on below.
- The bazaars as they open: between about nine and eleven, when shopkeepers have time to talk and the lanes are still cool.
- The Albert Hall after dark: lit up against the night sky, if you have an evening to spare.
- The empty middle: in the cool months these hours still leave a long midday for lunch and a rest, when Jaipur is hottest and most crowded.
- From April: we start even earlier and move the City Palace and the bazaars into the early evening.
- Read more: our Jaipur itinerary guide and our list of things to do in Jaipur, with the best hour for thirty more ideas.
Where you'll stay
Samode Haveli, inside the walls
Where: the townhouse of the Rawals of Samode sits in the north-east of the walled city.
Inside: painted rooms, a dining room covered in murals and a mirrored suite guests ask about long after they've left, around a garden with a pool.
- Close by: Hawa Mahal and the bazaars are a short walk or rickshaw ride away.
- Honest note: there is a little street noise at the gate, and that is part of living in the old city.
- Read more: our guide to Samode Haveli.
Samode Palace, in the hills
A hotel since 1987: the family opened their country palace then, and they still run it.
The rooms: each is different, many with painted walls and jharokha windows.
- The pool: set into the terraces with the hills behind it.
- Read more: our guide to Samode Palace.
- A garden instead: the family's Samode Bagh, about four kilometres away, is a Mughal-style garden with large tents among the trees.
Or three nights in one palace
Don't want to move? Give all three nights to one hotel and visit Samode for lunch.
- The grandest address: Rambagh Palace, once the home of Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II and Maharani Gayatri Devi.
- The calmest: The Oberoi Rajvilas, on 32 acres outside the city, with one of the best spas in India.
- Smaller and quieter: Jai Mahal Palace, set in formal Mughal gardens.
Other combinations we love
Grandeur, then drama: two nights at Rambagh, then a night at Alila Fort Bishangarh, a warrior fort on a granite hill about an hour and a half north of the city.
- For families or light sleepers: Rajvilas or The Leela Palace, with a single night at The Raj Palace on the Amer side of the walled city for the early starts.
- Every option compared: our guide to luxury hotels in Jaipur.
Eating your way through three days
Breakfast like a local
Pyaaz kachori: flaky pastry filled with spiced onion, from Rawat Mishthan Bhandar near Sindhi Camp.
- Lassi: from Lassiwala on MI Road, thick enough to stand a spoon in and sold out by lunchtime.
- Ghevar in the monsoon: in Johari Bazaar during the Teej season in July or August, LMB sells this honeycomb disc of fried batter soaked in syrup.
The dishes of the Rajput nobility
Laal maas: mutton in a fierce red sauce of Mathania chillies.
- Safed maas: the gentle white version, cooked with cream and ground nuts.
- For vegetarians: gatte ki sabzi, gram-flour dumplings in spiced yoghurt, and ker sangri, the dried desert berries and beans every grandmother cooks a little differently.
- Dal baati churma: every family has its own, and every family thinks theirs is right.
A special meal or two
An occasion in itself: dinner in the Suvarna Mahal at Rambagh Palace.
After the fort: 1135 AD inside Amber Fort makes a memorable lunch.
- At Samode: the palace kitchen cooks the food of the court, and in winter you may find bajre ki roti, millet bread with white butter and jaggery.
- A free evening: Masala Chowk beside the Albert Hall gathers some of the city's best-known street-food stalls into one open-air courtyard.
- The full list: our food of Jaipur guide.
When to go
October to March: warm days and cool nights.
December and January: mornings can fall close to freezing, so bring a shawl for Amber at opening and the fort at Samode at sunrise.
- 14 January
- Makar Sankranti, kites on every roof
- Late January
- Jaipur Literature Festival
- March or April
- Gangaur procession
- July or August
- Teej procession
- October or November
- Diwali
- February: the most comfortable weather of all.
- April to June: hot, often above 40°C. We plan around early starts, pools and late dinners, and hotel rates are kinder.
- The monsoon: July to September brings short downpours, green hills and almost no crowds, and Amber and Samode are at their loveliest.
- Each month explained: our guide to the best time to visit Jaipur.
Makar Sankranti, 14 January
- On the rooftops: the whole walled city climbs up to fly kites, and a haveli rooftop in the old city is the place to spend the day.
- How we plan it: we move the monuments to the days either side and give you a kite-flying teacher.
Jaipur Literature Festival, late January
- Writers and readers: they arrive from all over the world.
- Book early: it is busy and brilliant, and books out the city's best rooms well ahead.
Gangaur and Teej
When: Gangaur in March or April, Teej in July or August.
- The procession: both end with a royal procession from the City Palace out through Tripolia Gate.
- Where you watch: we book you a balcony above the route.
Diwali, in October or November
- Lit end to end: Johari Bazaar, Bapu Bazaar and MI Road.
- Our choice: if you only ever see Jaipur once, this is the week we'd pick.
Make it yours
Two nights instead of three
Drop Samode: keep both nights in the city.
- The shape: day one is the walled city and the City Palace, day two Amber and the ridge, with the Jantar Mantar squeezed in at midday.
- Honest note: it works, but it is brisk.
Four or five nights
Slower Samode: a second night for a lazy day by the pool and dinner at Samode Bagh.
- Or a fort: a night at Alila Fort Bishangarh.
- Or tigers: continue to Ranthambore, about three and a half hours south.
- How: our short escapes page.
Swaps for the third morning
Makers: a block-printing family in Bagru, or a gem cutter.
- Cooking: a cooking class in a haveli.
- Leopards: a dawn safari in Jhalana, on the edge of the city.
- In winter: a hot-air balloon over Amer at sunrise is unforgettable.
For families
What children love: the cannon at Jaigarh, the narrow passages of Amber, the moving shadow at the Jantar Mantar and the Egyptian mummy in the Albert Hall.
- Round it out: a kite-flying lesson on a rooftop and a leopard safari in Jhalana.
- Where to stay: Samode Bagh's lawns and tents suit families better than the palace's stairs.
- More: our family journeys.
For couples
A private dinner: on the Samode Palace terraces, or by the lamplit water channel at Samode Bagh.
- A stone together: a jeweller in Johari Bazaar who will set one you choose.
- Begins like this: our honeymoon journeys start in Jaipur exactly this way.
For repeat visitors
A different city: walk another part of the old city with an architecture or textile specialist.
- At dawn: Galtaji, then the Sisodia Rani garden.
- In the winter season: a polo match.
- Somewhere new: if you stayed at Rambagh last time, try the haveli.
Where these three nights fit in a longer journey
From Agra: about four hours by road, and we always stop at the great stepwell at Abhaneri on the way.
The middle of a Golden Triangle: as in our Golden Triangle and Udaipur journey.
- Agra
- About 240 km, around four hours
- Ranthambore
- About 180 km, three and a half hours
- Jodhpur
- About 340 km, five to six hours
- Udaipur
- An hour by air
- Shekhawati from Samode
- About three hours
- North to the painted towns: from Samode, Shekhawati is about three hours, so the last night here can be the first step towards Shekhawati and Bikaner.
- South or west: Ranthambore is about three and a half hours away, Jodhpur five to six hours, and Udaipur an hour by air.
- Journeys that begin here: our one week in Rajasthan and the Royal Rajputana.
- Planning the roads: our guide to getting around Rajasthan.
How we look after you
Your planner: from the first call to the last goodbye, on WhatsApp throughout.
Met on arrival: inside the airport or on the station platform.
A private chauffeur: waiting outside every sight, and driving you to Samode and on.
- On foot in the lanes: inside the walled city we often walk or switch to a cycle rickshaw for the narrowest lanes.
- A licensed local guide: who grew up there and never takes you to a commission shop.
- Booked ahead: the private City Palace tour, the festival rooftops and the restaurants.
- Closures handled quietly: we track state events and restoration work, and reshuffle your days in the background.
- No published prices: the choice of rooms makes a large difference, so we quote after one conversation, once we know your dates.
- Read more: our private chauffeur journeys, or plan my journey with us.
Who will love it, and who should choose a different journey
One city properly: you'll love it if you want to know one city well rather than see five quickly.
Old houses: if you enjoy painted rooms and stories, and don't mind a little street noise at the gate.
- Part of a bigger trip: if you are adding Jaipur to a business trip, a wedding or a longer India journey, and want it done well.
- Tigers, desert or lakes too? Choose a different journey. One week in Rajasthan adds Jodhpur and Udaipur.
- Light sleepers and young children: choose a modern resort instead of the haveli if you sleep lightly, have limited mobility or travel with young children. Tell us, and we'll change the hotels.
- Heat: choose another time of year if it bothers you and you can only travel in May or June.
