The Winner Is.....

And the winner is……….Udaipur! By far our favorite stay in India was Udaipur, the ”City of Lakes”.  Dominated by the massive City Pallace is lake Pichola. Within the lake is the former island summer palace of Jagmandir open to the public with a palace boat tour. Also visible from shore, but not accessible to us little people, is the exclusive Taj Palace Island Hotel. But by far the best view of Udaipur is a quick ropeway ride (cable car) to the Karni Mata Temple atop Machhala Magat hilltop.

In Udaipur, we found tidy streets, nice lakeside public spaces and several well shaded parks complete with troops of langur monkeys. Our accommodations at the Hari Niwas family homestay also added to our pleasant stay. Our hosts, 2 lovely sisters, Priya and Deepu could not have been more sweet, and the massive meals were better than any far more expensive restaurant.

Here is a closing video clip of a passenger boat plying lake Pichola at Sunset. Visible (travelling left to right) are the City Palace and then the grand Taj island hotel:

https://youtu.be/bSyKx1PyjcU

As we were departing Udaipur we found ourselves sharing our flight to Mumbai with a local school group on a class trip. The requests for selfies and photos with the funny foreigners resulted in a yearbook worthy group shot taken by their teachers.