Udaipur - The Royal Place of Mewar

We booked our stay at Hotel Janak Niwas, a beautiful and a budget place. The trip started with the beautiful city palace which is the residence of the king of the mewar at 4 o'clock. The palace describes the story of the Mewar dynasty, having royal carving and beautiful designs for doors and windows and with a very good view of the city around.

On the back side of the city palace, the door opens for a beautiful Lake Pichola which is one of the biggest lake of the Udaipur. It was sunset time when we arrived at backside of the palace after finishing visit of City Palace. It's a beautiful sight of the sun setting behind the mountains of Aravali, people enjoying the boat rides in the lake and peaceful water was telling the story why Udaipur is called as the city of the Lakes. One of the island of the Lake Pichola is Lake Palace and is a hotel for a stay but expensive and also having Jagdish Temple near Hanuman Ghat i.e. one of the ghat on the city end, Ambrai Ghat on the opposite end of the Jagdish Temple.

Ambrai Ghat is one of the must visit place if you're looking to have a dinner at lake side. There are many restaurants providing lake Side as well as lake view while having a dinner.

On the next day we planned a bit religious trip as I was with my family and there are such places like Eklingji Temple and Shri Nathji Temple at 40kms of distance. It's recommended to take a taxi who can take you there and you can finish of for all the nearby temples in a day time. Eklingji Temple is built and retained by kings of Mewar since 1450s.

Haldighati, a place near village Khamnor , was the battleground of the war of haldighati, one of the war where Maharana Pratap lost his loyal horse Chetak. It is said that during the war lakhs of soldiers were martyred and immediately after the war it was heavy rain on the battleground and the rain created a small pond of water mixed with blood of the soldiers and that got mixed in the soil of the place near khamnor village and made the color of the soil yellow mixed with red and it's spread on a 100m stretch after khmnor village and Haldighati. There is a place where chetak was buried and museum showing the history of Mahrana Pratap and his bravery. It's a good place to visit if you're history enthusiast.

If you have some time left in a day then you should go to Saheliyo ki Badi and Fatehsagar lake. Fatehsagar lake is another lake of the city and is one of the most happening places of Udaipur. Full of water and mountains and beautiful city view around with eateries and cafe nearby makes it choice for youth. Having the road all around the lake with walkway on the periphery of the lake gives you a space to enjoy a walk in the evening time.

On the Day3 which was the last day for our trip, we planned to visit Kumbhalgharh fort and Ranakpur temple. The whole trip is around 7.5 hours of travel time as the road to both the places are through the mountains and full of zigzags. From Udaipur to Kumbhalgarh to Ranakpur and back to Udaipur forms the triangle and is around 250kms of journey. We started at 7.30 in the morning to get back before 5 in the evening. It took 2.5 hours to reach to Kumbhalgarh. Kumbhalgarh is a birthplace of Maharana Pratap and is famous for having world's second largest wall after the wall of china. It is spread around 36kms makes the boundary wall for the fort. The fort is too old and is retained well for the visit, having number of temples. It's a nice place for photography.

Immediately after Kumbhalgarh, we rushed to Ranakpur temple which is about 65kms from Kumbhalgarh having zigzag ride through the mountains with the narrow roads. Ranakpur temples are best known for its carving and designs mostly seen in most of the Jain temples like Delwara in Mt.Abu. It's a good place for design and carving enthusiasts.