City Palace, Udaipur

My plan this morning was to visit City Palace, just a short walk from where I'm staying. All the advice was to go early, so I was up in good time and went for breakfast at the Namaste Café just across the alleyway. It looked like a bit of a dive, but the Puri Bhaji was delicious and thie coffee wasn't half bad, either!

After breakfast, I walked up to the palace. It is an imposing building that you catch glimpses of wherever you are in Udaipur. The main gate and location of the ticket office is Badi Pol. The inscription written in Persian dates it to 1616. The chatris (towers topped with domes), located on either side of the Badi Pol, were added at the end of the 1600s.

Once you are through the main gate, you arrive at the Tripoliya, an exquisitely carved triple arched gate built in 1711. It provides a spectacular entry into the Manek Chowk, the main public courtyard of the palace complex.

Unfortunately for me, much of both the outer and inner courtyards were hidden from view by construction work. This isn't part of any necessary renovation programme. Instead, it is preparation for a huge wedding which is costing millions of rupees to stage. The family of the bride have hired the entire city palace. Work on the set up and staging is taking a month and involves hundreds of contractors. I've never seen anything like it! I'm just glad I was able to visit at all. I'm told that if the wedding party pay enough, the whole place can be shut to tourists completely for several weeks!

The reason why the palace is here at all is an amusing if apochryphal story. On March 16, 1559, Rana Udai Singh was blessed with a grandson, Amar Singh. The Rana took his grandson to pay a customary visit to the Shrine of Shri Eklingji in order to receive blessings from the family deity. On his return, the Rana went to hunt. He killed a hare at the spot marked just inside Badi Pol. He placed a stone to mark it, considering it an auspicious location. The Rana saw smoke coming from a nearby hill. He climbed the hill and met an ascetic who told him to build his palace and capital city on the spot where he had killed the hare. So, the foundation stone was laid!

Elephants are an integral part of the historic army of Mewar. They struck fear into the hearts of the enemy and represented the strength and strategic might of the Mewar legacy. They were well looked after and were regularly assessed to make sure they were battle ready and in the best condition. A striking sculpture has been erected in their honour. 

Tigers were also housed in a cage in the courtyard to represent the Mewar Kingdom's dominence.

The Mewar family is the longest serving dynasty in the world. They are direct descendants of Shree Ram, considered the Supreme Being in Rama-centric Hindu traditions.

The City Palace today is actually a series of palaces linked by elaborate courtyards and corridors. There are hundreds of rooms to explore. It can feel quite overwhelming to visit. I limited myself to things I was particularly interested in (like the horse armour with added imitation trunks to create the illusion that the horses were baby elephants to deceive the enemies elephants into not attacking them!) and spent a very pleasant three hours wandering around.Leggi altro