A visit to the spectacular Hawa Mahal of Jaipur

The Hawa Mahal of Jaipur, or Palace of the Winds, is the great monumental attraction of this city. It is a place to visit when you spend a few days in this Indian city of the Rajasthan region. So take note and discover the reasons why you should sign up for the name of Hawa Mahal on your next trip to Jaipur.

The Hawa Mahal, the symbol of Jaipur

If the contemplation of the Hawa Mahal is a must for travelers in Jaipur, it is because we are talking about a really beautiful palace. Perhaps the most beautiful place, and that Jaipur and its surroundings have many attractions. That is why it is a habitual destination in the tourist circuits that cross this area of India where Delhi or Agra are located, with its unique Taj Mahal.

Therefore, everyone who contemplates the facade of the Palace of the Winds of Jaipur discovers one of the wonders of the country. A wonder for its beauty, but also for being a piece of history that talks about how the Maharajas once lived. If you want to know more about it, follow us on this virtual visit to the Hawa Mahal of Jaipur.

A Palace or a Harem?

The Hawa Mahal of Jaipur ordered him to build at the end of the 18th century the Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh, chief ruler of Rajasthan. And as such, I owned a large royal palace in the city of Jaipur.

Well, I’ve ordered this palace to be built inside the palace, since the Hawa Mahal was a construction attached to the rest, and built exclusively for his women. That is, this palace rose like a harem.

And that is a use that conditions both the appearance and the location of the building. Why? Because unlike the vast majority of palaces that are visited in India, such as Mysore, in this case it is not surrounded by gardens, but its facade communicates with the ancient city of Jaipur itself.

In addition, up to 953 windows can be counted in the palace. Something unheard of and that finds explanation in that it was a harem. From them the women of the Maharaja could contemplate the city and even the festive events before the palace, but at no time did they see them.

Enter the Hawa Mahal

Undoubtedly, the most emblematic of the Palace of the Winds is that facade, but when you visit the Hawa Mahal, you should know that it is not accessible there. You have to turn around and enter from the back. In this way, it can be seen that the old palace is barely left and its distribution is distributed over five floors.

Those five floors are visited. So you can see how on the first and second floor there are large terraces to look out. While access to the last two floors is through ramps and not stairs. Of course, climbing there has the reward of having a magnificent view over the city.

The facade of the Hawa Mahal of Jaipur

Entering is very interesting, but the most admirable view is that of its facade, built with red and pink sandstone. A type of stone that abounds so much in the constructions of Jaipur, for that reason it is known like the “pink city“. While no other building reaches the beauty of the Hawa Mahal.

The more than nine hundred windows that pierce the structure of Hawa Mahal are almost delirious. Windows that at times remembers a beehive, the same as the shape of the facade with the smaller upper floors evokes, according to Indian tradition, a peacock tail.

But in addition to giving beauty and personality to the building, all these windows are responsible for its name: the Palace of the Winds. And by opening them, the air was plentiful in the internal rooms to cool the environment pleasantly even in summer.

Something to be very grateful for in Rajasthan, a destination that we recommend you to travel better in winter, since summer can be suffocating.