Udaipur

Maharana Udai Singh II founded Udaipur in 1559, moving the Mewar capital off the exposed plateau of Chittorgarh and into a bowl of Aravalli hills with a dammed lake at its centre. It was a decision made under threat, and it produced the softest-looking city in Rajasthan.

Mewar's rulers spent centuries refusing to bend to Delhi — Maharana Pratap fought Akbar's army at Haldighati in 1576 and kept fighting from the hills afterwards. The palaces are pretty. The stubbornness underneath them is the real inheritance.

Lake Pichola is man-made and monsoon-fed, and in a weak rain year it drops far enough to embarrass the postcards. The City Palace grew along its edge over four hundred years, one Maharana adding to the last, which is why it reads as a stacked small town rather than a single building.

Mewar miniature painting is still worked in studios off the old lanes — squirrel-hair brushes, stone pigment, weeks for a page the size of your palm. Evenings, Bagore ki Haveli at Gangaur Ghat stages Rajasthani folk dance in a courtyard: a show, yes, and also a well-kept one.

Take the boat to Jag Mandir in the morning, not at sunset when every hotel guest is doing the same. The best view of the palace is free, from the steps at Ambrai or Hanuman Ghat with a glass of chai. Half the rooftop restaurants still screen Octopussy nightly — the 1983 Bond film was shot here — which tells you how long the tourist track has run unchanged. Walk the old city in the hour before it opens instead.

The lakes are the city's drinking water as well as its view, and hotels compete for both. Choose a stay that doesn't keep a lawn. Buy miniatures from the painters in the lanes rather than a hotel gallery, and keep off the washing steps at the ghats — they are in daily use by people who live here.

If Udaipur's polish appeals but you want Rajasthan with a harder edge, Jodhpur is five hours north-west — one immense fort, one blue city beneath it, far less staged. Pushkar suits anyone who wants the same state at a smaller, stranger scale.