City Palace, Udaipur
Approach
is daunting. Narrow road, going steep uphill, sharp blind turns at places.
Maddening crowd all around. Congested, bustling, teeming with shops on both
sides at places. Driving up and driving down by your own car to the entrance of
City Palace is a cliffhanger of a job.
At
the entrance, there are 3 sets of tickets: One for Parking, One for Moving
Around The Palace Compound but not entering inside, the 3rd one is
for moving inside the palace and taking the lake-view from backside.
The
cost of ticket also varies likewise – at current rate from Rs 30/- to Rs 115/-
as per the purpose. This of course for individual rate which may very well vary
from season to season, time to time and may well be different for group
booking.
The
tickets itself are small pieces of souvenir picture-postcard– with nice
photographs of the palace printed at the backside. Worth keeping as a
memento.
Right
from Palace-Entrance, till the inside-complex, till parking, till your stay and
till you leave – it’s a strictly no-horn, no-honking zone. By chance if you
press the honk of your car, uniformed security persons will rush yelling at
you, asking to stop immediately.
Now
that’s a challenge. The entrance, the gate, the parking - everywhere you have bustling crowds –
especially the entrance. You have to plough your vehicle amidst the milleu of
crowd. But you cannot honk. How to do it maintaining public safety?
That’s
only one of the myriad little many challenges that Indian Tourism is ready to
offer to discerning tourists.
Once
inside the palace complex, it’s a feast for the eyes.
The intricate
wall-frescos, the murals, the pictures, the myriad inlays in wall panel, the
view from vantage point of the white city of Old Udaipur lying below at the
feet of the palace – it’s really worth all the trouble and stress you take. I
won’t speak much on the same, photographs will speak for themselves.
The
approach road to City Palace (Hathipole Market, Gangaur Ghat, Jagdish Temple)
is itself nestled amongst so many other places of interests that it in itself
is a subject of detailed, separate review.
My
tip is: Visit the palace in first hour of the morning when it opens (say you
reach by 10:30 am optimum). Then you can see cool. And – if coming in your
vehicle – plz do not blow the horn once you are at the entrance of the palace.
Yeah,
for hungry soul, inside the palace entrance, at the front side of the palace,
there is a restaurant.
BTW,
the securities did not allow my pet (a small cocker spaniel) to even get down
from the car. First, they consulted their supervisor whether they will let the
car to inside-parking with a dog inside. The permission was granted with a
condition – the dog will stay inside the car and will not be allowed to come
down or come out of the car as long as the car is inside palace complex
parking.
Now
that’s quite interesting. Quite intriguing as well.
