Destinations
Region: Rajasthan, India
Known for: Amber Fort, Hawa Mahal, the Pink City
Nearest airport: Jaipur International (JAI)
Best season: October to March
Jaipur is known globally as the Pink City, a name earned in 1876 when the entire old city was painted a terracotta pink shade to welcome the Prince of Wales, a tradition of maintenance that continues today through municipal regulation requiring buildings in the historic core to retain the colour. It is the capital of Rajasthan and forms one point of India’s Golden Triangle tourist circuit alongside Delhi and Agra.
The Amber Fort, a hilltop fortress-palace complex roughly 11km from the city centre, represents Rajput military and artistic architecture at its most accomplished — a fusion of Hindu and Mughal styles built across the 16th and 17th centuries. The Hawa Mahal, or Palace of Winds, with its honeycombed pink sandstone facade of 953 small windows, was designed specifically to allow royal women to observe street life without being seen, a building that functions as much as a piece of architectural ingenuity as a tourist landmark.
Jaipur’s City Palace remains a partially functioning royal residence, with the current head of the former royal family still maintaining apartments there, giving the palace a living continuity that distinguishes it from purely museum-ified royal sites elsewhere.
For the full picture, see the separate guides covering Jaipur’s founding and Rajput history, what to wear given Rajasthan’s desert climate and conservative cultural norms, and a practical itinerary covering the forts and palaces.
