On the last evening of our Udaipur trip, Karthik and I were sitting on the rooftop of our small haveli hotel near Gangaur Ghat, drinking chai out of small clay cups that the night-shift waiter had brought up without us asking. The lights from the Taj Lake Palace were reflected on the water in long wobbling lines. A single boat was anchored a hundred metres out, mid-lake, a single oil lamp on its bow, a single fisherman silhouetted beside it. Neither of us spoke for about twenty minutes. When the waiter came back to ask if we wanted another round of chai I realised I had been holding the same empty cup the whole time. Udaipur does that to you.
I want to write this one for any Indian couple who is considering Udaipur as a romantic trip and is not sure whether to slot it into a Rajasthan circuit or do it standalone. The honest answer is that Udaipur is most romantic when it is its own trip. Three nights, two rooftop dinners, one boat at sunset, and no Jodhpur-Jaisalmer-Jaipur multi-stop circuit pressure. As a honeymoon coordinator I will tell you that the couples who fly in just for Udaipur, just for three nights, come back happier than the ones who try to do it as a stop on a seven-day Rajasthan circuit.
Getting in is the part that catches people out. Direct flights from Bangalore to Udaipur are limited and the timings are awkward. Most options route via Mumbai or Delhi. The Udaipur airport is small, twenty-five kilometres from the old city, the cab is eight hundred to a thousand rupees and takes about fifty minutes. Our flight landed at eleven in the morning, we were checked into the hotel by one, which is the right pace.
The choice of hotel matters more in Udaipur than in almost any other Indian city I can think of. Three broad options. One, inside or on Lake Pichola, the famous Taj Lake Palace (the floating white one), which is iconic and starts at around fifty-five thousand a night and goes up. Other lake-edge palaces like Jagat Niwas and the Leela Palace. Beautiful. Honeymoon-tier. Two, the old city, walking distance to the City Palace, converted havelis with twelve to twenty rooms each, atmospheric, no direct lake view but a short walk to the ghats. Seven to fifteen thousand a night. The sweet spot for most couples. Three, the outskirts around Fateh Sagar, modern hotels, more space, but you need a cab for everything and the romance is reduced by the daily logistics.
We chose option two. A small haveli near Gangaur Ghat with twelve rooms, a carved wooden balcony that I made Karthik photograph me on more than once, a rooftop with a view across to the Lake Palace and a courtyard with an enormous peepul tree in the middle. Nine and a half thousand a night, breakfast included.
The first afternoon we just walked. Lunch on the hotel rooftop, then out into the old city. The lanes around Gangaur Ghat and Ambrai Ghat are narrow and stone-paved, lined with tiny shops selling miniature paintings on silk and old paper, silver tribal jewellery, leather diaries with hand-tooled covers. We stopped at one painting workshop because the artist, a man in his forties, called us in and offered to demo a peacock. He did it in ten minutes flat on a piece of marble, no pencil sketch, freehand, white outline first and then the colours. We bought a small one for two thousand. It is now framed in our drawing room.
The evening was the boat ride on Lake Pichola, which is non-negotiable, no matter how cliched. Tickets at the City Palace boat jetty, six to eight hundred per person, one hour. Pick a sunset slot. The boat passes the Lake Palace (white, low, floating, the photo you have seen of Udaipur a hundred times), then the Jag Mandir (a smaller island palace where the Mughal prince Shah Jahan spent time in exile from his father, well before he became emperor and built the Taj Mahal), and back. We picked a slot fifteen minutes before sunset. The light during the ride goes from gold to pink to deep orange to the first lamps coming on around the ghats. There is a particular point in the ride, when the boat turns and the entire lake suddenly opens up with palaces on three sides, where I genuinely held my breath for a second.
Dinner that night at Ambrai, the rooftop restaurant on the lake-facing ghat. Book ahead, especially in season. Rajasthani-Continental menu, the laal maas was good, the gatte ki sabzi was better. We sat at a corner table looking across the water at the lit-up palaces.
Day two was the City Palace and then a day trip to Kumbhalgarh. The City Palace is the largest palace complex in Rajasthan. Allow two and a half hours. Hire a guide at the entrance for around six hundred rupees, the stories are worth it. Without the guide you walk past lovely rooms not knowing what you are looking at. With one, you understand the politics of three centuries of Mewar rulers and the difference between the Mor Chowk and the Zenana Mahal. The Crystal Gallery upstairs is small but startling, the world's largest collection of Maharaja-commissioned Osler crystal furniture, including a crystal bed which is more disquieting in person than the photos suggest.
Afternoon, the day trip to Kumbhalgarh. Two hours by car each way. The fort wall is the second-longest continuous wall in the world after the Great Wall of China, thirty-six kilometres around. You walk along the top for one or two kilometres, the views are panoramic, the wall itself is wide enough to walk eight horses abreast (which the maharajas apparently did, and which our guide mentioned with the satisfaction of a man who has said it many times). The drive back to Udaipur, especially the last hour as the sun is going down, is a small holiday in itself, the Aravalli range catching the light, small villages flashing past, the radio playing what sounded like a 1970s Hindi film song.
Quiet dinner at the hotel that night, early sleep.
Day three we slowed down deliberately. Bagore-ki-Haveli museum in the morning, the turban gallery and a recreation of a traditional Rajasthani household, one hour. Skip the dance show held in the same haveli in the evening, it is for tour groups. Saheliyon-ki-Bari (Garden of the Maidens) next, for a slow walk among fountains and lotus pools, the kind of garden where you find yourself sitting on a stone bench longer than you intended.
The afternoon was the cooking class. Many Indian couples skip these on principle (we cook at home, why are we learning) but I would urge you to consider it for Udaipur specifically, because Rajasthani cooking has techniques that even regular home cooks do not know. We did a three-hour class at a small home in the old city, eighteen hundred per person including the lunch we cooked together. Dal baati churma (the local trinity), gatte ki sabzi (gram-flour dumplings in a yoghurt curry), and baajra roti. The hosts, a Marwari husband-and-wife who had been doing this for ten years, taught us how the proportions actually work, how the bati is baked over coals not in a tandoor, why the gatte are simmered exactly the way they are. We ate what we had cooked, on the floor on a small carpet, with their two teenage daughters. It was unexpectedly intimate.
Evening was the sunset drive to Sajjangarh, the Monsoon Palace, on the hill above Udaipur. The road up is steep, the entry tickets are inexpensive, the view from the top is the entire city with all its lakes. Best photographed in the thirty minutes before sunset when the western light hits the white palaces. Karthik and I stood at the top in silence with a few dozen other people, all of us watching the same sun go down, and I have rarely felt the weight of a city the way I did that evening.
Late dinner at Upre, another rooftop place facing the lake, slightly more upscale than Ambrai. Then a slow walk back along Lake Pichola's ghats, lit by the small lamps from the moored boats, the water reflecting the palace lights, a vendor selling kulhad chai outside our hotel as we walked in. Twelve rupees a cup. We had two each.
Food worth seeking. Ambrai for the rooftop view at dinner. Upre at 1559 AD for the same view slightly upscale. Jagat Niwas Palace Hotel rooftop for breakfast or sunset cocktails (you do not have to be a guest). Natraj Dining Hall for an old-school, no-fuss Rajasthani thali eaten by locals. Cafe Edelweiss in the old city for cinnamon rolls and fresh bread when you want a slower European-style breakfast.
Best window for Udaipur is October to March. November and December are the most photogenic, clear skies, full lakes. April to June is too hot. Monsoon, July to September, makes the lakes overflow and the city green and romantic in a different way. We went in late September and the lakes were full to the brim, which was the right kind of luck.
Cost. Three nights for two, mid-range old-city haveli, dinners at the better rooftop places, all sightseeing, day trip to Kumbhalgarh with private vehicle, flights from Bangalore, came in at around eighty-five thousand. The Lake Palace would have doubled this. Worth it if you want the photo, not necessary for the trip to be magical.
Udaipur, more than any other Indian city I have helped couples plan trips to, rewards slowness. Do not over-schedule it. Leave the third afternoon completely empty if you can. Take the boat ride twice. Eat dinner on a rooftop on three nights running, even if it is the same rooftop. The city is small and round and it gives itself to people who walk it without a list.