Jaipur's history runs in layers: the Kachhwaha Rajputs ruled from hilltop Amber for six centuries before Sawai Jai Singh II moved his court down to a grid-planned city in 1727. Three days trace forts, stepwells, cenotaphs and quarters still lived in.
Begun in 1592 by Raja Man Singh I and expanded over 150 years, Amber was the Kachhwaha capital before Jaipur existed. Sheesh Mahal's mirror mosaics, the Ganesh Pol gate and Diwan-i-Aam rise above Maota Lake. Open 08:00–17:30.
A 16th-century eight-storey stepwell whose criss-crossing symmetrical staircases drop some 20 metres to the water. Built as Amber town's community water source and hot-season gathering place; unrestored, with the original niche rooms intact.
The 1726 hill fortress above Amber held the Kachhwaha treasury and its own cannon foundry. Jaivana, cast here in 1720, remains the world's largest wheeled cannon and was test-fired exactly once. Underground tanks stored six million litres.
Completed in 1734 as Jai Singh II's northern defence line, later fitted with the 1883 Madhavendra Bhawan: nine identical suites for nine queens, joined by corridors so the maharaja could visit without the others knowing.
Rajasthan's oldest museum, designed by Samuel Swinton Jacob in Indo-Saracenic style, its foundation laid for the Prince of Wales's 1876 visit and opened to the public in 1887. Egyptian mummy Tutu, Persian carpets, Rajput armour. 09:00–17:00.
The five-storey palace mid-lake was built around 1750 under Madho Singh I as a duck-shooting lodge; four of its floors submerge when Man Sagar fills. Closed to visitors, viewed from the Amer Road embankment and its restored ghats.
The cremation ground of Jaipur's maharajas since 1733, each ruler marked by a carved marble chhatri. Jai Singh II's cenotaph rests on 20 pillars with zodiac reliefs — a nod to his observatories; Madho Singh II's is the largest.
Completed in 1988 in white Makrana marble below Moti Dungri hill, financed by the Birla industrialist dynasty on land the maharaja leased for one rupee. Stained-glass panels set Hindu epic scenes beside Christ, Buddha and Confucius.
An 18th-century temple town wedged in a gorge east of Jaipur, built by Diwan Rao Kriparam under Sawai Jai Singh II around natural springs. Seven kunds are fed by a carved cow-head spout; the Surya Mandir above surveys the valley.
The seven-storey minaret Sawai Ishwari Singh raised in 1749 to mark his victory over Maratha and rival Rajput armies. A tight spiral stair climbs to the highest point inside the walls, where Vidyadhar's 1727 grid reads block by block.
Charles Correa's 1992 arts centre rebuilds Jai Singh II's nine-square Vastu plan for Jaipur in concrete and red sandstone — including the one square rotated off-axis, exactly as the original city plan was shifted for the hills.
The western gate quarter of the 1727 walled city, laid out on Vidyadhar Bhattacharya's grid, where marble carvers and brass beaters still work ancestral shopfronts. Walking east reaches Choti Chaupar, one of the plan's original squares.