GARDEN HOTEL -UDAIPUR -RAJASTHAN

The Garden Hotel at Udaipur teems with greenery inside and out. Across the street is Gulab Bagh, a tree-lined landscaped garden of several acres built by Maharana Sajjan Singh in the 18th century. In the courtyard of the colonial-style, circular hotel are neem and peepul trees, potted plants, bougainvillea hedges and a fountain.

The hotel features 20 deluxe rooms; each opens into the charming courtyard where the hotel restaurant—famous for its authentic Rajasthani cuisine, and especially the Rs 50 lunch vegetarian thali—is located. The rooms are well-appointed and cheerful, and the bathrooms are immense and immaculately clean.
A highlight of a stay here is easy access to the House of Mewar’s Vintage and Classic Car Collection. The original palace garage of the maharanas of Udaipur, within the same compound as the Garden Hotel, was converted into a museum in 2000. The grand limousines and cars showcased here include rare Rolls Royce and Mercedes models, 1939 Cadillac convertibles, a 1936 Vauxhall and a 1937 Opel. These are all in perfect running condition—as you may discover, rather unpleasantly, when their drivers rally down the circular pathway between the hotel rooms and restaurant.

The HRH Group of Hotels owns this charming hotel, designed as a relatively low-cost option for discerning travellers, as well as the landmark five-star Shiv Nivas Palace Hotel and Fateh Prakash Palace Hotel that form part of the City Palace Complex. Tariff is Rs 3,000 per night. For reservations, call 1600-180-2933 (toll-free), or email crs@udaipur.hrhindia.com.

HOTEL-SURAJGARH FORT-RAJASTHAN

Taking in guests since the New Year, Surajgarh Fort is the newest of the many heritage properties in Rajasthan’s Shekhawati region—and the closest to Delhi at 175km. The dilapidated 18th-century fort was only recently acquired by ‘Tikaraj’ Aishwarya Katoch, son of the Maharaja of Kangra, and his wife ‘Tikarani’ Shailaja of the Sailana royal family. While renovation work continues on diverse parts of the fort, the main palace and keep are fully functional, with 11 unique suites, an astonishingly painted dining hall, and several lounges including the upstairs open-air terrace courtyard (aangan). Minimal changes have been made to the architecture, apart from the necessary buttressings, glazings and girdings to make it habitable. Thus, the ground floor rooms were originally a labyrinth of storerooms, and dungeon dark. Today the thick walls have been opened up, retaining the arches and lintels, to make up study, sitting, sleeping, dressing and toilette areas in each suite.

The aangan, onto which the contiguous dining hall, and several of the luxurious top-floor rooms open, has quickly become a fast favourite for meals and chatter, with its colonnaded verandah, painted panels and view of the starry desert sky at night. The dining hall serves Continental cuisine as well as homely Indian and Rajasthani food, plus some Sailana heritage recipes from the Tikarani’s family.

Due to the insistence on retaining most of the original spaces, each suite is unique in shape and size, which is complemented with distinctive paintwork and décor—here a mustard yellow set off by old stripped pillars, there a royal crimson, and in the smallest room with its round bed, a midnight blue and sun-bleached white. Just one warning—taller guests might need to watch their head in some sections! Tikaraj Aishwarya’s collection of antique clocks graces some rooms, while others are hung with indigenous weaves and needlecraft. Pity the furnishings aren’t ethnic cottons to match! But the mod-cons are all in place, down to the flatscreen TVs. Tariff: Rs 4,500 for a 3D/2N stay. Contact: 011-25885709, 01596-238370; www.surajgarh.com.