Samode Palace

The Sheesh Mahal at Samode Palace was once kept for the women of the house. It is a hall of mirrors, glasswork and gemstones, with silver armchairs under the chandeliers, and the hotel now suggests it for dinner for two. The building began in the sixteenth century as a Rajput fort of marble and masonry and was dressed in the nineteenth as an Indo-Saracenic palace, tier on tier of scalloped arches in pale apricot, with the old walls still running along the ridge behind. The 43 rooms and suites run to four-posters, and one room puts its roll-top bath under an arched window full of scrub-covered Aravalli hills. Langur monkeys live in the courtyard trees, among the bougainvillea and frangipani. The wifi reaches only the courtyard, so anyone answering email does it under the monkeys.

Recommended for couples after a palace with Jaipur in reach rather than outside the window, and for families with children old enough for a camel. The Pink City and Amber Fort are fifty minutes' drive away. Nearer to hand, the hotel walks guests down through the village, where block-printers and a colony of miniature painters still work, past the Samode Baori stepwell, with high tea afterwards at Samode Bagh, the sister property's Mughal garden; further out, there are camels and jeeps for the desert. Of the two pools, the marble one by the courtyard has a shallow end and a play area, and the one on the roof has a jacuzzi pavilion and the view over the Aravallis. Dinner can be laid by that pool, in the gardens or on a terrace, so a couple who would rather not eat in the company of their own reflections need not.