A city that was made for two
The romance isn't something hotels have added. It is built into the stone. You don't need to do much here. You need to be in the right place at the right hour, and someone needs to have booked the boat.
Founded on a lake: Maharana Udai Singh II founded Udaipur in 1559, on the shore of a lake protected by the folds of the Aravalli hills.
Capital for good: after Akbar took Chittor in 1568, Udaipur became the capital of Mewar for good.
- Nights
- Four: Udaipur 3, Delwara 1
- Pace
- One sight a morning, one sunset an evening
- Best months
- October to March, or July to September
- Good for
- Honeymoons, anniversaries and proposals
- Starts
- Udaipur, flying into Dabok
- Ends
- Delwara, an easy drive to the airport
- Warrior kings who built for pleasure: for four centuries the Sisodia rulers did something unusual for warrior kings, and built for delight as much as defence.
- Lakes made bigger: they enlarged Pichola, dammed Fateh Sagar and Udai Sagar, and set summer palaces on islands so the court could escape the heat on the breeze off the water.
- Jag Mandir: begun around 1620 and finished by Maharana Jagat Singh I. The Mughal prince Khurram, the future Shah Jahan, is said to have sheltered there during his rebellion.
- Jag Niwas: built between 1743 and 1746 as a summer palace for Maharana Jagat Singh II. It covers nearly its whole island, so from the shore it seems to float.
- The Taj Lake Palace today: Jag Niwas is now the hotel. Only guests may land, and diners with a reservation only when the hotel accepts outside bookings; we check.
- Romance in the stone: palaces meant to be reached by boat, gardens laid out for the women of the court, and a monsoon palace on a hilltop for watching the clouds roll in.
- Why we send couples here: that is why Udaipur is the city we recommend to two people travelling together.
- Mornings: one palace, one temple or one garden.
- Afternoons: a long lunch, a nap, a spa or nothing.
- Evenings: a sunset, and every sunset is somewhere different.
- The last night: you leave the lake for the hills, so the trip ends in silence rather than in an airport queue.
- The longer version: our page on Rajasthan honeymoons shows how this fits into a longer journey.
Four nights, day by day
- Flights in
- About an hour from Delhi, Mumbai or Jaipur
- Airport
- Dabok, about 22 km east of the city
- Udaipur to Delwara
- About 30 km north
- Nathdwara
- About an hour north
- Jaipur by road
- About six hours
- Jodhpur by road
- Five to six hours
Day 1: arrive by air, cross by boat
The flight: Udaipur is about an hour's flight from Delhi, Mumbai or Jaipur.
Met at the airport: one of our team meets you at Maharana Pratap Airport at Dabok, about 22 kilometres east of the city.
- The drive in: your chauffeur brings you into the city through the green hills.
- The best arrival in India: if you are staying at the Lake Palace, the last part of the journey is by the hotel's own boat from a jetty on the shore.
- Afternoon: a long lunch, then sleep off the journey.
- Sunset on the lake: in the hour before sunset, a private boat takes you out onto Lake Pichola, timed so you are mid-lake as the sun drops behind the western hills.
- Past the ghats: you drift along the shore while the City Palace turns from cream to amber.
- Evening: dinner at your hotel. On the first night we always suggest staying in.
Day 2: the City Palace, the lanes and a show by the ghat
Morning aarti: if you are early risers, go first to Jagdish Temple for the lamp-lit prayer, when bells ring and women arrive with brass plates of flowers.
City Palace at opening: be at the City Palace as it opens, and climb straight to the top courtyards before the tour groups arrive.
Mor Chowk: work down through the courtyard of glass mosaic peacocks.
- Badi Mahal: a garden courtyard at the top of a natural hill.
- A private guide: makes the four centuries of building legible.
- The painter's studio: walk down through the old lanes to a miniature painter's studio and watch a painter at work with squirrel-hair brushes and mineral colours.
- A portrait of you both: perhaps commission a small one while you are there.
- After lunch: rest.
- Tea at Fateh Prakash: take tea on the terrace of Fateh Prakash Palace in the late afternoon.
- Dharohar: walk to Gangaur Ghat for the evening show of folk dance in the courtyard of Bagore ki Haveli.
- Dinner: on a rooftop facing the lit City Palace across the water.
Day 3: the garden of the maidens and the palace in the clouds
Saheliyon ki Bari: start at Saheliyon ki Bari, the garden Maharana Sangram Singh II laid out in the early eighteenth century for the women of the court.
Go early: while the fountains run and the school groups are still at their desks. The lotus pools and marble elephants are at their best in the cool of the morning.
- Fateh Sagar: walk the embankment of Fateh Sagar, the people's lake, where students eat roasted corn and boats run out to Nehru Garden.
- The afternoon is yours: the spa, the pool, a book.
- The Monsoon Palace: an hour before sunset, drive up through the forest to the Monsoon Palace at Sajjangarh, which Maharana Sajjan Singh commissioned in 1884.
- The widest view in the city: over the lakes and the folding Aravallis.
- The evening we plan most carefully: a boat across Pichola after the day visitors have gone, and a candlelit dinner on Jag Mandir.
- At the landing stage: stone elephants stand guard, with the lights of the city across the water.
Day 4: temples of the north, and a palace in the hills
A slow breakfast: then leave the lake.
Nagda: drive north to the Sas-Bahu temples, a pair of carved tenth- and eleventh-century shrines beside a small lake.
Often yours alone: few visitors stop, so their columns of dancers and musicians are often yours alone.
- Lunch at the palace: your hotel is about 30 kilometres north of the city, so you arrive in time for lunch.
- RAAS Devigarh: RAAS Devigarh is an eighteenth-century hill palace above the village of Delwara, restored inside its thick old walls as a pale marble hotel with almost no ornament.
- A deep breath: after the gilt and glass of the lake, that is how it feels.
- Afternoon: the pool, or a walk down into the village with your guide.
- Eklingji at lamp-lighting: in the early evening, drive the short way to the temple at Kailashpuri, the family deity of the Mewar rulers, as the lamps are lit and local families arrive straight from work.
- No cameras: photography is not allowed inside, and you won't want it.
- Dinner: on the palace terrace under the stars.
Day 5: a slow breakfast, then onwards
No alarm: have breakfast as late as you like.
- The flight home: the airport at Dabok is within easy reach of Delwara, so a midday flight still leaves time for a walk on the ramparts.
- Or keep going north: many of our couples don't go home at all from here. They continue to the great wall of Kumbhalgarh and the marble temple at Ranakpur.
- Or the dunes: fly on to the dunes of Jaisalmer.
Where you'll stay
- Nights 1 to 3
- Taj Lake Palace, or Udaivilas
- Night 4
- RAAS Devigarh, Delwara
- In the City Palace
- Shiv Niwas or Fateh Prakash
- Most secluded
- Raffles Udaipur, on Udai Sagar
- A painted alternative
- Deogarh Mahal, further north
The Taj Lake Palace, our first choice for three nights
A real palace: Taj Lake Palace is a real eighteenth-century palace on its own island, reached only by the hotel's boats.
How it became a hotel: in the 1960s Maharana Bhagwat Singh turned it into one, and the Taj group took over its management in 1971.
- After the last boat: once the last diners have crossed, it is utterly still, with fountains in the courtyards and the City Palace lit across the water.
- Face the lake: rooms vary, as in any historic palace, so ask us for one facing the lake rather than an inner courtyard.
- The only trade-off: every outing begins with a boat ride, which most couples count as a pleasure.
The Oberoi Udaivilas, for space and a pool by the water
Built new: The Oberoi Udaivilas was built in the early 2000s in the language of a Mewar palace.
Old hunting grounds: it stands on land that was once part of the Maharanas' hunting grounds on Pichola's western shore.
- Water views: many rooms look across the lake, and some have semi-private pools running along the waterfront.
- Service and spa: the staff are famously attentive, and the spa is one of the finest in India.
- Split the stay: many of our couples take two nights at the Lake Palace, then one at Udaivilas.
Inside the City Palace, or on its own island
Shiv Niwas Palace: Shiv Niwas Palace curves around a courtyard pool inside the City Palace complex, with the suites holding most of the character.
Fateh Prakash Palace: Fateh Prakash Palace houses the Durbar Hall and the Crystal Gallery.
- Who runs them: Fateh Prakash now trades under the Taj name. Only Shiv Niwas is run by the family's own hotel group.
- After the visitors leave: both let you walk the palace courtyards once the day crowds have gone.
- Total seclusion: Raffles Udaipur opened in 2021 on a private island in Udai Sagar, east of the city.
- A grand occasion: The Leela Palace Udaipur is the choice for couples who like a hotel to feel like one.
The last night: RAAS Devigarh, or another hill palace
Why Devigarh: we love RAAS Devigarh for the final night because it is so unlike the lake.
- What it feels like: clean lines, pale marble, Aravalli views and a village below.
- Painted rooms instead: Deogarh Mahal, about two and a half hours north, is a seventeenth-century palace with its own lake, where a nobleman's family are your hosts.
- Compare them all: our guide to luxury hotels in Udaipur compares every option room by room.
The small romances we arrange
None of these is a package. We choose two or three that suit you, and we leave the rest of the time empty.
A boat at last light: a private boat on Pichola in the last hour of light, drifting past Jag Mandir as the City Palace turns gold.
Breakfast in bed: at the Lake Palace, with the shutters open and the lake completely still.
- Dinner on an island: a candlelit dinner on Jag Mandir, reached by boat, after the day visitors have gone home.
- Chai at Ambrai Ghat: on the western shore, as the City Palace lights come on one by one across the water.
- The ropeway: up Machhla Magra hill to the Karni Mata temple, for a view over Pichola and the old city.
- Your portrait: a sitting with a miniature painter, who paints the two of you in the Mewar style over a few days.
- A palace courtyard dinner: a private dinner in a palace courtyard, as simple as a family thali or as grand as a full Rajput banquet.
- A vow renewal: for anniversaries, a vow renewal on a palace terrace, with a priest, marigolds and as much or as little ceremony as you like.
- Where to watch the light: our journal on Udaipur sunset spots lists our favourite places.
- For a proposal: our proposal ideas for Udaipur piece has more.
What to eat in Udaipur, together
Mewar cooking: generous and mostly vegetarian, shaped by its Jain merchant families and the temple kitchens of Nathdwara.
Order dal baati churma: wheat rolls baked until crisp, broken into lentils and soaked in ghee, followed by the sweet crumbled churma.
Try gatte ki sabzi: gram-flour dumplings in a spiced yoghurt gravy.
- Dal baati churma
- Baked wheat rolls, lentils, ghee, sweet crumble
- Gatte ki sabzi
- Gram-flour dumplings in spiced yoghurt
- Ker sangri
- Dried desert berries and beans
- Makki ki roti
- Winter maize bread with ghee and jaggery
- Safed maas
- Mutton in cream and ground nuts
- Ghevar
- Honeycomb sweet of the monsoon
- Then ker sangri: the dried desert berries and beans of western Rajasthan.
- In winter, makki ki roti: maize bread from the terraced hill fields, served with ghee and jaggery.
- Palace maas ke soole: the palace kitchens keep the Rajput classics, like these smoked skewers once made with game and now with goat or chicken.
- Rich safed maas: mutton cooked in cream and ground nuts.
- Monsoon ghevar: if you come in the rains for Teej, look for the honeycomb disc of fried batter soaked in syrup that appears only in the monsoon.
- Where matters as much as what: we book a courtyard at Jag Mandir and rooftops above the lake where the City Palace is lit across the water.
- The Lake Palace for outside guests: we book a table only when the hotel accepts outside bookings; we check.
- The full list: our food of Udaipur guide and our piece on the best rooftop restaurants in Udaipur.
What we tell couples before Udaipur
Udaipur is one of the most relaxed cities in Rajasthan, and most of our couples never have a moment's worry here. A little local knowledge still makes the days smoother, and it helps you fit in with a city that takes its temples, its lakes and its manners seriously.
Book the last hour of light: not the middle of the afternoon. The lake is a different place at sunset.
- Temple dress
- Shoulders and knees covered
- Shoes
- Left outside temples, with leather
- Greeting
- Khamma ghani
- Winter evenings
- Bring a light shawl
- Eklingji
- No photography inside
- Check for weddings: tell us if you want calm, and we will check whether a large wedding is booked at your hotel on your dates.
- Dress for temples: at Jagdish and Eklingji, cover shoulders and knees, and leave shoes and leather outside.
- Affection in the lanes: public displays draw stares in the old city. Hold hands by all means, and save the rest for the boat.
- The ghats at dawn: the bathing ghats are private spaces. Watch from a distance and keep your camera lowered.
- A light shawl: in winter, mornings and evenings on the water are colder than you'd expect.
- Say khamma ghani: the Rajasthani greeting. Boatmen and shopkeepers light up when a visitor uses it, and they often reply in kind.
When to go
- October to March
- Warm days, cool nights, full lakes
- Wedding season
- November to February
- July to September
- Green hills, quiet city, kinder rates
- April to June
- Hot, often near 40°C
- Holi
- Spring full moon, February or March
- Diwali
- October or November
October to March, the classic season
The weather: warm, clear days and cool nights, with the lakes usually full after the rains.
- Chilly mornings: in December and January, so pack a shawl for early boats.
- Wedding season: between November and February many grand hotels host large celebrations with music and fireworks over the lake.
- We always check: weddings are lovely to glimpse and less lovely next door to your room, so we check before we book.
July to September, our secret season
Green hills: the monsoon turns the hills a deep, startling green, the waterfalls run and the Monsoon Palace finally makes sense.
Quieter and kinder: the city is quieter and rates are kinder.
- The best seat in town: a room with a covered balcony.
- Teej: in the rains, women wear green leheriya for Teej and swings hang from the trees.
- Built for these months: our Monsoon in Mewar journey.
Festivals worth planning around
Holi: falls on the spring full moon in February or March. The night before, the royal household keeps its own Holika fire at the City Palace.
- Gangaur: Gangaur follows, when women carry the goddess Gauri in procession to Gangaur Ghat.
- Mewar Festival: the Mewar Festival brings music and boats to Pichola at the same time.
- Diwali: in October or November, lamps line the ghats and the lake reflects every one of them.
April to June
The heat: often near 40°C, and the lakes can fall low in a poor year.
- Only if: you plan to spend the days in the hotel and go out in the first and last hours.
- Month by month: our guide to the best time to visit Udaipur has the detail.
Make it yours
- Three nights
- All on Pichola, no hill night
- Five or six nights
- Add Devigarh, Nathdwara or Kumbhalgarh
- Lakes and dunes
- Add a night in the desert
- Shortest we advise
- Three nights
Three nights
All on Pichola: keep all three nights on the lake and drop the hill palace.
- What you lose: the quiet last night.
- What you keep: the boat, the palace and the Jag Mandir dinner.
- No shorter: we wouldn't go below three. Two nights in Udaipur is a stop, not a stay.
Five or six nights
A second hill night: add another night at Devigarh.
- Nathdwara: a morning an hour north, for a darshan of Shrinathji and a look at the painted pichwai cloths.
- Kumbhalgarh and Ranakpur: replace the hill night with two nights there, so you walk part of the fifteenth-century wall at sunrise.
- The fuller version: our Mewar Lakes and Temples journey.
Lakes and dunes
A night in the desert: many couples pair Udaipur with one, where there is nobody else for miles.
- Udaipur and Jaisalmer: see Honeymoon in Udaipur and Jaisalmer.
- Our signature journey for couples: Rajasthan for Two adds a Jaipur rooftop and the Thar.
For anniversaries and proposals
A secret proposal: we keep the plan secret from one of you, which takes a little choreography with boatmen and waiters, and we are good at it.
- The extras: flowers, music or a photographer, if you'd like them.
- A big anniversary: we can bring the family for a dinner and then send everyone else home, so the last nights are just for two.
- Larger celebrations: our destination weddings team handles them.
How we look after you
We are a Jaipur family, and Udaipur is the city we recommend most often to couples. We plan every journey around the two people taking it, so we don't publish prices. After one conversation about your dates and what you'd love, we send a quote and a day-by-day plan.
Met on arrival: at Udaipur airport, or at the station if you arrive by train.
- Arrival
- Met by our team at the airport or station
- Car
- Private chauffeur every day
- Guides
- Private, or none if you prefer
- Planner
- On WhatsApp throughout
- Prices
- Quoted after one conversation
- A private chauffeur: for every day of the journey.
- Boats at the right hour: private boats booked for the right hour, not whatever slot is left.
- Tables reserved with your room: Jag Mandir and the best rooftops, and the Lake Palace only when the hotel accepts outside bookings; we check.
- Guides, or none: a private guide for the City Palace and the old city, and none at all when you'd rather wander alone.
- Flights: to and from Udaipur, arranged to suit your connections.
- Your planner on WhatsApp: throughout, ready to move a dinner or add a surprise.
- No commission shopping: if you want silver or a painting, we take you to studios we know.
Who will love it, and who should choose another journey
Honeymoons and anniversaries: you'll love it if you are on honeymoon, marking an anniversary, planning a proposal or simply tired.
Very little effort: it gives you a few days of beauty without a crowded schedule.
- Love it if
- Honeymoon, anniversary, proposal or rest
- Ages
- Couples of every age
- Pairs well with
- Delhi or Jaipur first
- Skip it if
- You want nightlife or adventure
- Every age: it suits couples of every age.
- After a busier journey: it slots neatly onto the end of a journey through Delhi or Jaipur.
- In the monsoon: a good choice when much of India is wet and Udaipur is at its greenest.
- Not for nightlife: choose something else if you want nightlife, long sightseeing days or a sense of adventure. Udaipur is a calm city, and this plan keeps it calm.
- Desert lovers: couples who want camps, camels and stars should look at Under the Thar Sky.
- First-timers: visitors who want to see all of Rajasthan should start with The Royal Rajputana.
