One of the indisputed great palace complexes of India, Udaipur’s City Palace is also incredibly well managed.
Revisiting after many, many years, there were some visible, very obvious changes.
More rooms open to visitors than I had remembered.
Many more visitors than my last visit.
Vastly more in fact, which is where the amazingly efficient organisation is evident.
There are more guides and staff and signs than you can shake the proverbial stick at.
From the moment you enter the premises, you are politely but firmly monitored. There is a strictly enforced one way system through the myriad rooms in the palace which makes sense, but if you try and buck the system as we did, you are very politely steered back on course.
There is a Rs200 fee for cameras, which is also strictly monitored.
As one young American woman found out to her cost.
“Yes, I do have a camera,” she admitted, after the polite female security guard had extracted it from her back pack.
Given the numbers game in India, the sheer mass of people thronging any venue, these security and guiding measures are much needed, and when they are enforced so politely, and in a place of such splendour, I am very happy.
Shabash, City Palace for getting it right.
A wonderful, informative visit.
We paid our own way, and no-one knew that I blog or write reviews.