City Palace, Jaipur

Two tickets, and the gap between them

The first decision at the gate is which ticket, because the two are far apart. The ₹700 foreign-tourist museum ticket (about £5.50) covers the part everyone comes for: the Mubarak Mahal with its textile and costume galleries, the Diwan-i-Khas hall holding the two enormous silver urns — the Gangajali, listed as the largest sterling-silver vessels in the world — the Sileh Khana armoury, and the four painted seasonal doorways of Pritam Niwas Chowk, of which the green Peacock Gate is the one in everyone’s photos. The ₹3,000 Royal Grandeur ticket (about £23.40) adds a guided walk into Chandra Mahal, the seven-storey residence the royal family still occupies, which the standard ticket only lets you photograph from the courtyard. Buy the ₹700 ticket unless those private apartments are a specific draw — most visitors don’t miss them.

The palace is open daily 09:30 to 17:00, with last entry around 16:30, plus a separately ticketed night visit (around ₹500) on season evenings. It sits in the old city right beside Jantar Mantar and a five-minute walk from Hawa Mahal, so the sensible move is to do all three on one Pink City morning rather than crossing town for each. Get there by Uber or Ola, or by auto-rickshaw with the fare agreed before you climb in.

Is the City Palace worth the detour?

Aim for the 09:30 opening. The courtyard light is better early, and the painted-doorway corner of Pritam Niwas Chowk turns into a photo queue by late morning as the coach groups arrive. Jaipur is brutal in the April-to-June heat, regularly over 40 degrees, so an open courtyard complex is far more bearable in the first hour. Allow ninety minutes to two hours on the standard ticket, or closer to three with the Royal Grandeur tour.

It’s worth the ₹700 and the time as part of an old-city morning, less so as a sight you cross the city for on its own. This is a working royal residence rather than a dead museum, and the painted gates and silver urns are genuinely worth seeing — but the complex is compact and the standard ticket covers it in under two hours. The Royal Grandeur upgrade splits opinion sharply; skip it unless stepping inside the family’s apartments is the whole point for you. Pair it with Jantar Mantar next door and a Hawa Mahal photo, and you’ve done the Pink City core before lunch and the worst of the heat.