Udaipur Day 8 - 25th October 2012

Part 2 - City Palace

Return to part 1 - Jagdish Temple & Lake

Jump to part 3 - Festival & Dancing

Elephant Pillows - the elephants would have lain on the slightly raised shapes, while tethered to the block in the foreground...

Front entrance...

More excellent murals...

The horse even has balls - great whiskers on the doorman too...

The guide was particularly proud of the use of Belgian glass, like these two plumes...

In one battle, the defenders disguised their horses as baby elephants to confuse the attacking army's elephants into not harming them...

Miche and one of the stained glass lattice screens...

Miche in the Amar Vilas courtyard and its solid marble pool...

A photo of the last elephant fight that took place at the palace in 1951. Essentially the elephants were drugged up on opium to get them suitable riled and a form of tug-of-war would take pace with the wall in the middle...

View of the Summer (or Lake) Palace from the top of the City (Winter) Palace. The palace was used as Octopussy's home in the film...

The palace is now a luxury hotel called the Taj Lake Palace. You used to be able to go and have lunch there, but some day-tripper tourists disgraced themselves there some time ago and now it's residents only...

Back in the City Palace, a mirror room and more of that Belgian glass put to good effect...

An indoor Sun God for cloudy days...

A peacock mosaic from the Mor-chowk (Peacock Courtyard)...

The viewing gallery above the Peacock Courtyard...

Another Sun God image in glass...

Sorry, but I can't resist taking photo's of the splendid murals...

The entrance to our hotel and guess what? More excellent murals!

Inside our (different) room for the second night...

Within an enclosed balcony, it had a sort of lounging space of a large mattress and cushions and a view of the City across the water...

Impressive bedsteads...