Jaipur

---

Today I toured Jaipur. Our first stop is considered the main attraction of the city, Amber Fort. It is the former palace of the maharajahs of the Jaipur region. (The current maharajah lives in the City Palace downtown - we’ll get to that in the afternoon.) Amber Fort is built on a hill and there are elephants that carry tourists up to the main courtyard. I didn’t do this - I’m still recovering from my camel ride in 2015, lol. The palace is impressive and I particularly liked the little rectangular garden in the center. After that we drove to the center of town where the other sights are. I visited Jantar Mantar, the celestial observatory built by one of the maharajahs in the 1700s. He built it on a monumental scale, apparently believing that this would provide more accurate astrological predictions. Among the huge instruments are twelve different structures built to monitor the twelve different signs of the zodiac. Next was City Palace which has parts that are open to the public. Most impressive to me are the huge silver vessels (urns? pots?) that are reputed to be the largest silver objects in the world. Lastly I went to the Palace of the Winds, a famous landmark in Jaipur that was built for the ladies of the court so they could look out on the street without being observed themselves.

---