Udaipur

Udaipur is a lake city with no beach. It sits in the Aravalli hills of southern Rajasthan, far from any coast, and its lakes are for looking at and boating on, not for swimming. Bathing on a trip here means a hotel pool, and many of the heritage hotels around Lake Pichola have one with a view.

Eating here means Rajasthani and Mewari cooking: dal baati churma, gatte ki sabzi, laal maas for meat eaters, and big vegetarian thalis served with refills. Morning kachori and poha stalls and sweet shops selling ghewar and mawa sweets give the best local flavour, mostly away from the lakefront in the old bazaars and newer neighbourhoods.

Around Lake Pichola and Gangaur Ghat, rooftop restaurants trade on the view more than the kitchen, with long menus that mix Indian, pizza and pancakes. The palace hotels serve polished fine dining. Alcohol is available but not part of everyday life, and the scene is narrow: a few good days of eating rather than a reason to come.

The City Palace dominates the city: a vast complex of courtyards, mirrored halls, balconies and painted rooms built up over centuries by the Mewar rulers, rising straight from the shore of Lake Pichola. On the water sit the Lake Palace and Jag Mandir, white island palaces that give Udaipur its famous profile, and the old city behind them is a tangle of havelis, ghats and shrines around the carved Jagdish Temple.

Beyond the core are Bagore ki Haveli with its restored rooms, the fountain gardens of Saheliyon ki Bari and the Monsoon Palace on its hilltop. It is a romantic, coherent ensemble rather than a dense museum city, and two or three days cover it well.

Evenings in Udaipur are about a sunset drink on a rooftop over Lake Pichola and a long dinner, then bed. There are hotel bars and a few lounge bars, some with music at weekends, but no club culture to speak of and little open late. Drinking is not part of local street life, and the old city goes quiet early.

The setting is the draw: a ring of low, scrubby Aravalli hills around a chain of artificial lakes, Pichola, Fateh Sagar and others, that turn green and full after the monsoon. Boat rides, sunset viewpoints and the forested Sajjangarh sanctuary below the Monsoon Palace are the easy outings, and there are short hikes and cycling routes in the surrounding hill villages.

Further out, the Kumbhalgarh sanctuary offers jungle walks and drives, and Jaisamand Lake is a large, quiet expanse to the south-east. The hills are not high and summers are fiercely hot, so outdoor time belongs to the cooler months from October to March.

Udaipur is a strong base for Mewar's heritage. Closest are the temple towns: Eklingji and the carved ruins of Nagda about half an hour north, and the Krishna pilgrimage town of Nathdwara about an hour away. The great hill fort of Kumbhalgarh, with walls snaking for kilometres over the ridges, is around two hours away and is often combined with the marble Jain temple at Ranakpur, one of the finest in India.

Chittorgarh, Rajput India's most storied fortress, is roughly two hours to the east. These are long road days, best done with a hired car and driver.

Children tend to enjoy the boat rides, the palaces, the puppet shows and the cable car up to the hill viewpoints, and Indian families make a fuss of young visitors. Lakeside hotels with pools make a comfortable base. But there is little built for children, the old city's lanes are narrow and shared with motorbikes, cows and autorickshaws, pavements barely exist and the heat from April to June is punishing. It suits families with older children who are curious about history, visiting in winter.

The old city around the City Palace, Jagdish Temple and Gangaur Ghat is compact, and much of what visitors want is within a short walk, though the lanes are narrow, steep in places and shared with constant motorbike traffic. There is no public transport a visitor would use. Autorickshaws and ride-hailing cars cover the rest of the city, and the sights on the hills and all the day trips call for a hired driver.

Udaipur is a crafts town. It is known for miniature painting, with workshops around the City Palace where artists paint with squirrel-hair brushes, and for block-printed and tie-dyed bandhani textiles, silver jewellery, leather-bound notebooks and puppets. The old bazaars around Hathi Pol, Bada Bazaar and the clock tower sell fabrics, spices and bangles to locals as much as visitors.

Shilpgram, the rural arts village on the edge of town, holds a large crafts fair each December. Beyond crafts the range is thin, with no fashion or luxury streets, and shops near the palace work hard on commission-driven selling.

Day to day, Udaipur is very cheap: thalis, street snacks, autorickshaws and entry to most sights cost little, and simple guesthouses in the old city are easy on any budget. Where it gets expensive is the thing it is famous for, staying in a lake palace or a heritage haveli with a view, where rooms run to international luxury prices. Comfortable mid-range lakeside stays sit comfortably in between.

The evening fixture is the folk dance show in the courtyard of Bagore ki Haveli, with Rajasthani dances, music and the balancing pot dance, a staged but lively introduction. Lok Kala Mandal, the folk arts institute, keeps traditional puppet shows going, and the winter crafts fair at Shilpgram brings folk musicians and dancers from across western India. Beyond this there is little: no regular classical, theatre or live-music circuit.

Udaipur has no bathing culture of its own, but it is one of the gentler places in India to slow down. Ayurvedic massage and oil treatments are offered all over the old city, yoga classes are easy to find, and the palace and resort hotels around the lakes run elaborate spas. The real restorative moment is the lake itself, watched from a terrace at sunset. The lanes away from the water are still loud with horns and traffic, so calm here is something found in the hotel and on the water, not in the streets.