Things to do in Jaipur

Landmark · 11 km north

A sandstone and marble hill fort from 1592 with mirrored halls, terraced courtyards and a wall running along the ridge above it.

Local tip: Go for the eight o'clock opening rather than the elephant queue at ten. Walk up the ramp instead of riding — the elephants have a documented welfare problem and the walk takes twelve minutes. The Sheesh Mahal is the famous room; the Jaleb Chowk courtyard at opening time is the better one.

Culture · Walled city, beside the City Palace

Nineteen monumental masonry astronomical instruments built in the 1730s, UNESCO-listed, and still accurate.

Local tip: The Vrihat Samrat Yantra is a twenty-seven metre sundial that reads local time to about two seconds. Take the official guide — without one it is a park full of abstract concrete, and with one it is the most interesting hour in Jaipur.

Landmark · Walled city

The 1799 honeycomb façade of 953 windows, and behind it the gemstone and jewellery bazaar that is the city's real economy.

Local tip: Everyone photographs the façade from the street. The interior is nearly empty and the view out through the jali screens is the point — that is what it was built for. In Johari Bazaar, buy only against a certified lab report and never from a shop your driver suggested.

Nature · Aravalli ridge, north-west

A ridge-top fort with the whole grid of the eighteenth-century planned city laid out below it.

Local tip: The stepwell inside — Nahargarh's baori — and the Madhavendra Bhawan apartments are usually empty. Go up at five, stay for the light, and come down before the road gets busy. The sculpture park inside is a genuinely serious contemporary collection that almost nobody expects.

Culture · 12–30 km south-west

Villages where hand block-printing with carved wooden blocks and natural dyes is still a working trade rather than a demonstration.

Local tip: Bagru uses mud-resist and iron-and-jaggery black; Sanganer works on finer white cotton. Arrange directly with a printing family rather than through a hotel desk, and go on a weekday morning when the drying fields are actually in use.

Nature · Amber, near the fort

A sixteenth-century stepwell with symmetrical criss-crossing staircases descending eight storeys into the ground.

Local tip: Five minutes from Amber Fort, free, and skipped by almost every coach that goes to the fort. Go early — the geometry only reads properly in low side light, and by nine there are influencers on the steps. Climbing down the stairs is discouraged and the caretaker will say so.