Udaipur Travel Guide: The City of Lakes
Lake Pichola, the largest palace complex in Rajasthan, and a sunset from Sajjangarh — plus the Kumbhalgarh day trip that earns you a third night.
Udaipur earns its nickname honestly. The old city is built around Lake Pichola, with Fateh Sagar to the north and a ring of hills beyond, and the effect from almost any rooftop at dusk is the reason the city fills up every winter. It sits 400 km south-west of Jaipur — about six and a half hours via Ajmer and Bhilwara — and roughly 660 km from Delhi, which is a long day's drive and better broken overnight in Jaipur or Ajmer.
The palace, and the ones people skip
The City Palace is the largest palace complex in Rajasthan and takes a solid two hours; buy the museum ticket and go clockwise, ending at the Amar Vilas terrace. Jagdish Temple sits just outside the main gate and is easy to walk into on the way out. Two lesser-visited stops are worth the detour: Saheliyon ki Bari, a garden built for the queen's attendants with fountains that still run, and Bagore ki Haveli on Gangaur Ghat, where the evening folk dance and puppet show at seven is one of the few tourist performances in Rajasthan that is genuinely good.
Sunset, and getting on the water
Two options and both are worth doing on separate evenings. The boat ride from Rameshwar Ghat circles Lake Pichola and stops at Jag Mandir, and the last departure before sunset is the one to book. Sajjangarh — the Monsoon Palace — sits on a hilltop inside a wildlife sanctuary above the city, and the view down over both lakes at dusk is the better of the two. Private vehicles are not allowed past the sanctuary gate; you park and take the shuttle for the final climb.
Day trips that justify a third night
Kumbhalgarh is 85 km north, and its perimeter wall — the second longest in the world — runs for 36 km along the ridge. Pairing it with the Ranakpur Jain temple, with its 1,444 carved marble pillars, makes a full but manageable day out by road. Chittorgarh, 115 km east, is the alternative for anyone more interested in history than architecture, and works well as a stop on the way back towards Delhi.
October to March is the season; November and December are the best of it. Summer here is severe, and the city is worth avoiding entirely between May and mid-June unless you have air-conditioned plans. Sightseeing distances within Udaipur are short but the old city lanes are narrow and largely one-way, so a driver who knows where to drop and where to wait saves a lot of walking. YantraCabs covers the Jaipur–Udaipur leg and the Kumbhalgarh and Chittorgarh day trips as fixed-fare outstation runs.
