Rajasthan Royal Forts Trail

About this pack

A 8-day luxury trip to Jaipur, India, taking in Amer Fort, Mehrangarh Fort, Jaisalmer Fort and City Palace, Udaipur.

Inside the Rajasthan Royal Forts Trail trip

Rajasthan Royal Forts Trail opens at Amer Fort, also spelled Amber Fort, set on a hill above Maota Lake around 11 kilometres from Jaipur. Built originally by Raja Man Singh and expanded in the early 1600s by Jai Singh I, the fort remained the seat of the Kachwaha Rajput rulers until the capital moved to the newly founded city of Jaipur under Sawai Jai Singh II in 1727. Constructed from red sandstone and marble across four courtyarded levels, the palace complex includes the Diwan-e-Aam, or Hall of Public Audience, the mirrored Sheesh Mahal, and the Sukh Niwas, cooled by winds passing over an internal water cascade; near its Ganesh Gate stands a temple to Shila Devi, installed after Raja Man Singh's victory over the Raja of Jessore in 1604, and visitors today reach the hilltop entrance, the Suraj Pol, by jeep rather than on elephant back.

From Jaipur the route travels to Mehrangarh, the fort of Jodhpur, rising some 122 metres above the surrounding plains across a complex spanning 1,200 acres. Founded around 1459 by the Rathore ruler Rao Jodha, who moved his capital here from the older fort at Mandore after a warning that its defences were no longer adequate, most of the structure standing today dates from expansions by his 17th-century successors. Its seven gates include the Jai Pol, built to commemorate an 1806 victory over the armies of Jaipur and Bikaner, and cannonball scars from a Jaipur assault are still visible on its second gate; the English writer Rudyard Kipling described Mehrangarh as "a palace that might have been built by Titans and coloured by the morning sun," and its museum today displays palanquins, ceremonial elephant howdahs and Mughal-era art reflecting the Rathore rulers' long ties to the Mughal court.

The trail continues west to Jaisalmer Fort, the second-oldest fort in Rajasthan, built in 1156 AD by the Rawal Jaisal on Trikuta Hill amid the sands of the Thar Desert, and one of very few "living forts" in the world where roughly a quarter of the old city's population still resides within its walls. Its massive yellow sandstone ramparts turn a tawny lion colour by day and honey-gold at sunset, earning it the name Sonar Quila, or Golden Fort, later popularised worldwide by the Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray's detective film of the same name, shot on location here. The fort withstood a long siege by Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate around 1299 before eventually falling, and in 2013 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List alongside five other Rajasthani forts as an example of Rajput hill architecture.

The route closes at the City Palace in Udaipur, on the eastern bank of Lake Pichola, begun in 1553 by Maharana Udai Singh II of the Sisodia Rajput dynasty after he shifted his capital there from the hilltop fort of Chittor. Built up over nearly four centuries by 22 generations of Sisodia rulers behind a facade stretching 244 metres, the palace complex combines eleven smaller palaces linked by zigzagging courtyards designed, according to tradition, to frustrate surprise attack, their interiors decorated with mirror-work, marble inlay and murals; the complex overlooks Lake Pichola and the Lake Palace beyond, and later gained a wider audience as a filming location for the 1983 James Bond film "Octopussy" — a fittingly cinematic close to a route that has already carried the traveller through three of Rajasthan's most storied hill forts.

• Amber Fort — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Mehrangarh — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Jaisalmer Fort — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
• City Palace, Udaipur — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text adapted from the linked articles under CC BY-SA 4.0; edited for length.

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