Jaipur City Palace.

	Jaipur City Palace
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As you enter the second courtyard you're confronted by the raised Diwan-i-Khas , the Hall of Private Audience, built in sandstone and marble. Open-sided, with its roof raised on marble pillars, the hall contains two silver urns, or gangajalis , listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest crafted silver objects in the world, each more than 1.5m high with a capacity of 8182 liters.

When Madho Singh II went to England to attend the coronation of King Edward VII in 1901, he was so reluctant to trust the water in the West that he had these urns filled with Ganges water and took them along with him.

In the centre of the compound, with balconies and windows studding its seven-storey facade, Chandra Mahal is the residence of the royal family. You can see it best from Pritam Niwas Chowk , known as Peacock Courtyard, to the west of the Diwan-i-Khas. Against the ochre walls of this court, four gateways provide a shock of dazzling colour, decorated with peacocks and regular patterns in red, green, blue and gold.

The last and largest section of the museum is housed in the Diwan-i-Am , once the Hall of Public Audience, where ornate pillars support the high ceilings. The walls, intricately painted with touches of deep red and gold, provide perfect mounts for immense medieval Afghan and Persian carpets. Miniatures from the Moghul and Jaipur schools, and Jai Singh's translations in Arabic and Sanskrit of the astronomical treatises of ancient scientists such as Euclid and Ptolemy, are displayed in glass cases.

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City Palace (daily 9.30am-4.45pm; Rs110 includes camera and video).