The City Palace of Jaipur, India

The Hawa Mahal "The Palace of Winds" Jaipur, India.

In front of us was the Hawa Mahal, the famous Palace of the Winds, whose rosy façade is the emblem of Jaipur. It has over nine hundred small windows, through which the women of the palace could gaze at the traffic of the market road without being observed. Men were forbidden entry and, for the women of the Court, it was the greatest of pleasures.

Naturally, the Palace is pink, full of arched passages and domes, on whose edges thin, white lines can be distinguished. You go through beautifully carved brass or wooden doors and the guest rooms have a delicate artistic technique applied to the walls. Everything culminates in a most impressive blue hall, through which you walk…and dream. The private apartments are closed to the public and are meant only for the enjoyment of the present Maharajah of Jaipur, a genteel 13-year old boy. 

The City Palace of Jaipur, India.

Opposite the central gate, where the guard with the curling moustache stood, was a pink, glass pavilion, a space reserved in the past for private audiences, where two enormous urns of sterling silver were on display. Standing at 1,60 metres and with a capacity of 4000L, they were commissioned in 1901 by the then maharajah.  A very devout Hindu, he had water from the Holy Ganges transported to England, where he would be attending the coronation of Edward VII, for him to drink. The urns were entered in the Guinness Book of Records as being the largest in the world...

 Travel memoirs from the book INDIA and my Persian garden