A couple of months back, I wrote about a trip to Mount Abu. This post takes up the story the next day, when we drove to Udaipur, a city in southern Rajasthan, to catch our flight to Mumbai. This is a shorter drive (three hours rather than five hours) than a return trip to Ahmadabad and, as a bonus, we got to see more sights.

We left at a comfortable time in the morning. At the 3,900 feet / 1,200 meter altitude of Mount Abu, the weather was clear and pleasant. We set off in a caravan of cars and headed towards Udaipur. Udaipur is known as the “City of Lakes” and is a very popular tourist destination. There are many palaces in the city and on the lakes. The palaces are considered of the Rajput era and were built from the 16th to 19th century.

Our first, and only palace visit, was to the see the Monsoon Palace on the western outskirts of Udaipur. Built in 1884, the palace is high on the Aravalli Hills, just outside Udaipur. According to Wikipedia, it was planned to be a large astronomical observatory, but upon the premature death of the builder, Maharana Sajjan Singh, it was turned into a hunting lodge and a place to observe the monsoon clouds. It has a fantastic view of Udaipur, its lakes, and the palaces. This first picture is of Lake Pichola taken from the Monsoon Palace.

Lake Pichola in Udaipur from the Monsoon Palace

This next picture is the only one that includes any part of the Monsoon Palace. It is a rather plain palace and most of the pictures I took there were of our traveling group. As a policy, I don’t include people pictures in these public blog posts. Here you can see the wall of the palace with Udaipur and its lakes in the distance.

The walls of the Monsoon Palace with Udaipur in the distance

This is a view of another major lake in Udaipur, Fateh Sagar Lake. It has a park and a solar observatory on islands in the lake.

Fateh Sagar Lake from the Monsoon Palace

The Monsoon Palace is now managed by the Forest Department of the Government of Rajasthan. There are hiking trails and some temples in the area. This view looks toward the northwest from the parking lot.

A remnant structure near the Monsoon Palace. Taken from the parking lot looking northwest.

The views from the Monsoon Palace are remarkable. This is looking south across the farmlands and mountains.

Looking south from the Monsoon Palace.

This zoomed-in shot shows more of the details of Lake Pichola. The City Palace is the large building to the left of the hill, and the Taj Lake Palace hotel is in the lake in front of the City Palace.

A telephoto view of the palaces on Lake Pichola in Udaipur.

We came down off of the mountain to have lunch at the fine Oberoi Udaivilas hotel on the shores of Lake Pichola. We had a fine lunch and then went out in the gardens. This view shows the City Palace with the Taj Lake Palace hotel in the foreground.

Taj Lake Palace in the foreground and the City Palace in the background

The gardens at the hotel are very well kept.

The pleasant and well kept gardens of the Oberoi Udaivilas in Udaipur.

There were many chipmunks on the grounds of the hotel. Well, I would call it a chipmunk, but upon consulting the internet, I find that it is probably an Indian palm squirrel. I suspect they are well fed given how lush the garden of the hotel are.

One of the many chipmunks on the grounds of the Oberoi Udaivilas