Do you want a butler and canopy beds? The City Palace’s Gudliya Suite might be your next luxurious stay.
Imagine standing in a 300-year-old home with vaulted ceilings, giant crystal chandeliers, and furniture upholstered in the finest silk and satin, with gilded wall decorations by some of the world’s top painters. Jaipur’s City Palace provides all of this and more.
The palace, which is home to the royal family of Jaipur, is now available to visitors from all over the globe, with one room in the sumptuous facility, the Gudliya Suite, being advertised as a rentable property on Airbnb. We recently got the opportunity to spend some time inside the palace, and the experience was, to put it mildly, surreal.
His Highness Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh and Princess Diya Kumari welcomed us to the Pink City. We went to the palace for a royal welcome after high tea at Caffe Palladio. We arrived through the Tripolia Gate, which is only open to royal visitors. Shivina Kumari, executive director and trustee
of the Princess Diya Kumari Foundation (PDKF), welcomed us with a food procession that provided us a taste of the royal cuisine. This was followed by ‘son et lumière,’ which emphasised the history of Jaipur’s royal family. We finished the night by feasting on scrumptious Rajasthani and other cuisines
while admiring the splendour of the Chandra Mahal.
The next day, we went to the Amer Fort, an architectural marvel with serpentine stairs and maze- like tunnels that immersed us in Rajput grandeur. This was followed by lunch in the restaurant, 1135 AD, where the cooks prepared us a secret royal feast using recipes passed down through centuries and unknown to the general public.
Returning at the City Palace, we were ushered to an enclosed area that revealed a luxury bed chamber known as the Gudliya Suite. The pastel-colored walls of the suite made it feel like a villa, with its own lounge, kitchen, bathroom, and a private, indoor swimming pool that also doubles as a royal hammam experience.
The Gudliya Suite has formerly welcomed notable figures such as Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Jacqueline Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and others. The apartment may be reserved for $8,000 (about Rs 5.7 lakh), with all revenues benefiting the Princess Diya Kumari Foundation (PDKF), a non-profit committed to assisting rural women and craftsmen in Rajasthan.
The tour finished with an opulent banquet thrown by the monarch himself, attended by celebrities like as Karisma Kapoor, Mandira Bedi, and Raghuvendra Rathore. Scroll down to see a behind-the- scenes look at Jaipur’s City Palace and the Gudliya Suite.
