Where to Stay in Udaipur: Palaces, Lakes, and When to Go

Udaipur is a city arranged around water. Lake Pichola sits at its centre, the old city crowds the eastern shore in a slope of whitewashed houses and temple spires, and the grander hotels stand on the far bank, on islands in the lake, or out in the hills beyond it. Almost every decision you make here starts with one question: do you want to stay inside that old city, close enough to walk to the ghats and the bazaars, or across the water where there is room to breathe and a pool to swim in.

This guide is about answering that well and then using the city once you have arrived. Where the lakes and neighbourhoods sit, and which one suits you. The real hotels, grouped by character rather than price, from island palaces to family-run havelis. What to see in and around the City Palace. When to come, since the season matters more here than the map. How to get in from the airport or the train, and the two side trips worth a day. And the practical end of things: food, temples, cash, and the heat.

The lakes, and how the city sits

Udaipur is the old capital of Mewar, in the green, hilly south of Rajasthan, and it was built around water on purpose. Lake Pichola lies at the centre, an artificial lake enlarged by Maharana Udai Singh II when he moved his capital here in the sixteenth century. The old city climbs the eastern shore in a slope of close-packed houses, temple spires, and the long waterfront wall of the City Palace. Two islands sit out on the water: Jag Niwas, now the Taj Lake Palace hotel, and Jag Mandir, an older island palace you can visit by boat.

A second lake, Fateh Sagar, lies just to the north, joined to Pichola by a canal and ringed by a road that locals walk and drive in the evenings. Around and behind it all rise the Aravalli hills, some of the oldest mountains in the world, with the Monsoon Palace on a ridge to the west and the fort country beyond. The water is the reason the city looks the way it does, and it is also why the season matters so much: in a dry year the lakes drop, and after a good monsoon they fill to the steps of the ghats.

It helps to remember that this is a living, working city of several hundred thousand people, not a stage set. Pilgrims climb to the Jagdish Temple through the same lanes as the tour groups, and the bazaars sell vegetables and cooking pots next to miniature paintings and block-printed cloth. Treat it as a real place and it gives back more than the postcard version.

• Lake Pichola is the heart of it, with the old city on its east bank and most of the famous hotels on or around it.
• Fateh Sagar is quieter and more residential, good for a walk or a lakeside evening away from the crowds.
• The ghats, the stone steps down to the water, are where the old city meets the lake. Gangaur Ghat and Lal Ghat are the busiest and the most walkable.

Neighbourhoods to base in

There is really one big decision, and everything else follows from it: base inside the old city on the east bank, or across and beyond the water at one of the resorts. They are close together on the map and completely different to wake up in.

The old city: Lal Ghat, Gangaur Ghat, and Jagdish Chowk

This is the atmospheric, walkable heart of Udaipur, the tangle of lanes above the eastern ghats. Staying here usually means a haveli, a traditional townhouse turned into a small hotel, often with a rooftop restaurant looking across the lake to the City Palace and the Lake Palace. You can walk to the temple, the ghats, the bazaars, and the boat jetty. The trade-offs are the ones any old city carries: narrow lanes, some noise, steep stairs instead of lifts, and streets a car cannot always reach. For most first-time visitors, the atmosphere is worth it.

On and across the lake

The other choice is to stay on the water or the far bank, where the large hotels have room for gardens, pools, and quiet. This is where the island and lakeside palaces sit, reached in some cases only by the hotel boat. You trade the street life and the short walk to the sights for calm, space, and service, and you take a boat or a car whenever you want to be in the thick of things.

Out of town

A third option is to leave the city altogether for the hills. The best-known address here is the village of Delwara, about forty minutes out, where a restored palace looks over the countryside. This suits travellers who want deep quiet and do not mind a drive into town for a day of sightseeing.

Stay in the old city and Udaipur comes with noise, temple bells, and lanes too narrow for a car. Stay across the water and you trade all of that for calm and a pool. The lake looks the same from both shores. What you hear from the window does not.

Where to stay

These are established, verifiable places to stay, grouped by character rather than price. Rates in Udaipur swing hard with the season, so book early for the cool months and check directly with each hotel.

The island and lakeside palaces

• Taj Lake Palace is the white marble palace that appears to float on Lake Pichola, built as a royal summer residence by Maharana Jagat Singh II in the eighteenth century and now run by Taj Hotels. You reach it by the hotel boat. It is the picture most people carry of Udaipur, and because it is a genuine island, coming and going is always by water.
• The Oberoi Udaivilas stands on the western bank of Lake Pichola on former royal hunting grounds, a modern hotel built in the older Mewar style, with gardens, domes, and long views back across the water to the city.
• The Leela Palace Udaipur also sits on the lake, arrived at by boat, and is the newest of the big lakeside hotels, with rooms facing the water and the City Palace beyond.

Inside the City Palace: the HRH hotels

Part of the vast City Palace complex is run as hotels by the Historic Resort Hotels group, the hospitality arm of the former Udaipur royal family. Staying here puts you inside the palace walls, a short walk from the museum and the lake.

• Shiv Niwas Palace is the crescent-shaped former royal guesthouse, built in the reign of Maharana Fateh Singh in the early twentieth century, with a courtyard pool and rooms that range from comfortable to grand.
• Fateh Prakash Palace stands next door in the same complex, a more formal palace hotel overlooking Lake Pichola.

Heritage havelis in the old city

If you want the old-city location without a palace budget, the havelis along the eastern ghats are the answer. Jagat Niwas Palace, a converted haveli of the seventeenth century on Lal Ghat, is the best known of them, with lake-facing rooms and a well-regarded rooftop restaurant over the water. There are many smaller family-run havelis and guesthouses in the same lanes; the things that separate a good one are the walk to the ghats, whether the room actually faces the lake, and how high the rooftop sits.

Out in the hills

RAAS Devigarh is an eighteenth-century palace in the village of Delwara, about forty minutes from Udaipur, restored over many years and reopened as an all-suite hotel at the end of the 1990s. It looks out over the Aravalli countryside rather than the lake, and it is the pick for travellers who want hills and quiet over city bustle.

The City Palace and what to see

The City Palace of Udaipur is the obvious first stop, and the largest palace complex in Rajasthan. It was begun by Maharana Udai Singh II and built up by his successors over roughly four hundred years, which is why it reads as a run of connected palaces rather than a single building: courtyards inside courtyards, painted rooms, mirror and glass work, and balconies that lean out over Lake Pichola. Part of it is a museum open to visitors, part is still used by the former royal family, and part is the HRH hotels. Give it a couple of hours at least.

From there the rest of the old city is close by, most of it on foot.

• Jagdish Temple, a short walk up from the palace, is a large working Hindu temple finished in 1651 and dedicated to Vishnu. It is active and busy, so leave your shoes at the door and dress modestly.
• Bagore-ki-Haveli, on Gangaur Ghat, is an eighteenth-century mansion built by a prime minister of Mewar, now a museum. In the evenings its courtyard hosts the Dharohar show of Rajasthani folk dance and puppetry, one of the easier ways to see the region dance.
• Saheliyon-ki-Bari, the Garden of the Maidens, is an eighteenth-century pleasure garden of fountains, pools, and marble pavilions, laid out for the women of the court.
• The Monsoon Palace, or Sajjangarh, is a hilltop palace of 1884 on a ridge west of the city, inside a wildlife sanctuary. People go up for the long view over the lakes at sunset rather than the building itself.
• The Ahar cenotaphs, a couple of kilometres east, are the royal cremation ground of the Mewar rulers, a field of carved white marble memorial pavilions with a small archaeological museum nearby. It is quiet and little visited.

The other thing to do is get out on the water. Boats run on Lake Pichola through the day, with a stop at the island of Jag Mandir, and the late-afternoon departures that catch the light on the City Palace are the ones people plan around.

When to go

Season matters more than almost anything else in Udaipur. The short version: come in the cool, dry months if you can, roughly October to March, with November to February the most comfortable stretch for walking the old city and sitting out on a rooftop at night. These are also the busiest and most expensive months, and the lake hotels book out well ahead for the winter.

The hot season runs from about April to June, before the rains, when afternoons can climb past 40°C (about 104°F) and sightseeing becomes an early-morning-and-evening affair. The monsoon follows from roughly July to September, humid and green, with rain that tends to come in bursts rather than all day. It is the quieter, cheaper season, the hills turn green, and the lakes refill, at the cost of some grey skies and the odd washed-out afternoon. Exact temperatures and rainfall vary from year to year, so treat these as broad patterns rather than a forecast.

Festivals are worth checking against your dates, though many follow the lunar calendar and move from year to year. The spring Mewar Festival, tied to the Gangaur celebrations, and the autumn lights of Diwali are the big ones, and both can make the city livelier and busier than usual.

Getting there and side trips

Getting in

Maharana Pratap Airport (airport code UDR), at Dabok about 22 km east of the city, is the usual way in, with domestic flights from Delhi, Mumbai, and other Indian cities. There is no significant international service, so most overseas visitors connect through Delhi or Mumbai. The other common arrival is by train, into Udaipur City station, on overnight and daytime services from Delhi, Jaipur, and beyond.

• From the airport or station, a prearranged hotel car is the smoothest option, and for the lake palaces it is close to essential, since the last stretch is by the hotel boat.
• By road, Udaipur connects to Jaipur and Jodhpur in a long half-day of driving each, which is why it often sits at the start or end of a Rajasthan road trip. Treat drive times as generous, since the roads wind through hills.
• In the old city, remember that cars cannot reach some haveli doors. Good hotels will tell you the nearest point a vehicle can reach and, where needed, meet you there.

Two side trips worth a day

The countryside north of Udaipur holds two of the finest historic sites in Rajasthan, and they are usually combined into one long day out.

• Kumbhalgarh is a fifteenth-century hill fort built by Rana Kumbha, wrapped in a perimeter wall often described as one of the longest continuous walls in the world, running for something like 36 km along the ridges. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed among the Hill Forts of Rajasthan, and it is about two hours from the city by road.
• Ranakpur, roughly 33 km on from Kumbhalgarh, is a fifteenth-century Jain temple of white marble known for its forest of carved columns, said to number well over a thousand. It is an active place of worship, so there are set visiting hours for non-worshippers and rules on dress, and leather items are often restricted.

Doing both in a day means a fair amount of driving, but the pairing of the great wall and the carved temple is worth the early start. A hired car and driver, arranged through your hotel, handles the logistics.

Food and practicalities

The regional cooking is Mewari, a branch of Rajasthani food shaped by a hot, dry land and a strong vegetarian tradition. The dish to know is dal baati churma: baked wheat balls broken into lentils, served with a sweet, crumbled churma. You will also see gatte ki sabzi, gram-flour dumplings in a yoghurt gravy, and ker sangri, a tangy dish of desert beans and berries. Meat-eaters should look for laal maas, a fiery red mutton curry that is a Rajasthani signature, though many kitchens here, especially in the old city, are vegetarian by choice. A thali, the compartmented platter that lets you try several dishes at once, is the easy way in.

In the old city the rooftop is the classic place to eat, with restaurants stacked above the ghats looking out at the City Palace and the Lake Palace on the water. The views are the draw and the food is usually solid rather than remarkable, though a few of the haveli hotels, Jagat Niwas among them, are known for doing it better than most. Alcohol is served in hotels and licensed restaurants but is not everywhere, and some of the old vegetarian places do without it, so do not assume a rooftop will have a bar.

• Temples and Jain sites. Remove your shoes, cover your shoulders and knees, and expect leather belts, bags, and straps to be restricted at Jain temples such as Ranakpur.
• Cash and cards. Cards and phone payments work in hotels and larger shops, but keep some cash for auto-rickshaws, small cafes, temple donations, and the bazaars, where bargaining is normal.
• Heat and sun. Even in the cool season the midday sun is strong. Carry water, wear a hat, and in the hot months pace the sightseeing around the middle of the day.
• Getting around. The old city is best on foot; for anything further, auto-rickshaws and taxis are easy to find, and it is normal to agree the fare before you set off.
• One local quirk. Parts of the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy were shot in Udaipur, and small cafes around the old city still screen it most evenings. It is a bit of harmless tradition more than a must-see.

Common questions

How many days do I need in Udaipur?

Two to three nights covers the city itself without rushing: the City Palace, the temple and ghats, a boat on the lake, a garden or two, and time to just sit above the water. Add a night if you want to fold in the Kumbhalgarh and Ranakpur day trip, which is long, or if you simply want to slow down.

Is it better to stay in a lake palace or in the old city?

It depends on what you want from the trip. A lake or island palace gives you calm, space, a pool, and the view everyone comes for, at the cost of being a boat or a car away from the street life. A haveli in the old city puts you a short walk from the temple, the ghats, and the bazaars, with a rooftop over the water, at the cost of noise and stairs. Many people do a night or two of each.

Can I visit the Taj Lake Palace if I am not staying there?

The island is private to hotel guests, but non-guests can sometimes visit by booking a meal there, subject to availability and a minimum spend, with the hotel arranging the boat across. It is not a walk-up sight, so arrange anything like that well in advance and expect it to depend on how full the hotel is.

What should I wear at the temples?

Dress modestly at religious sites: cover your shoulders and knees, and take your shoes off before going in. At Jain temples, including Ranakpur, leather items are often not allowed inside, so plan to leave belts and leather bags behind or in the car.

Is Udaipur a good place for families?

Yes. The boat rides, the gardens, the palace with its courtyards and museum, and the folk-dance evening at Bagore-ki-Haveli all work well with children, and the parts of the city where you will spend most of your time are walkable. The main things to manage are the midday heat in the warmer months and the busy lanes and ghats.

When is the best time to go?

For most people, November to February: warm days, cool evenings, and the lakes at their fullest after the monsoon. It is the busiest and priciest window for exactly that reason, so book the popular hotels well ahead.