Supposedly the most romantic city in India and a total coincidence that we ended up here on Valentine's Day!

Udaipur sits in a valley and is built around 3 huge lakes and aside from being a little overrun with tourist shops, it is very beautiful and lives up to it's hype.

We stayed in a great old hotel -complete with painted walls and ceilings, coloured glass windows, reclining window seats and a rooftop terrace with views over the lake . . . but better than all that . . . a bath tub! We can't remember when we last saw such a thing, but had begun to fear that they had become extinct whilst we've been away. Gemma was so excited that she had to go out and buy chocolate (sadly, no Cadbury's Flakes were available, but a Bounty did the job!)!

The drive here was a comparatively short one (the endless road building somewhat distracting from the scenery), meaning that we had 2 good days to relax and enjoy the place before heading to Jaipur. Apparently, the Bond movie 'Octop**** was shot here and bizarrely, restaurants still use the fact that they have a nightly screening as a selling point (at least ITV only do that at Christmas!)! We managed to find a really nice restaurant (not showing Octop**** ) and for the first time in almost 25 consecutive lunch and dinners had some great food that was not made up of some form of curry! Those at home who say they could happily eat curry for every meal (Graham being one of them!) - trust us, however good, you do get sick of it after a while! After trying local wine in Nepal and finding it by far the worst thing we've ever tasted, we were a little anxious when we also ordered a bottle of Indian red (using Valentine's Day as the excuse!), but it was really good - what a treat! We're not sure if this is just because it's been a few months since we had any, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Having said that, at 12 pounds a bottle, it did cost us as much as our last weeks worth of dinners!

Whilst in Udaipur we visited the City Palace (where once again the local Maharaja has kindly decided to turn the family home into a tourist attraction), walked the city's crowded backstreets and spent many an hour scenery-gazing from rooftop café's. In the evenings we watched the sun go down over the lake and mountains, with the evening call to prayer adding a great atmosphere and background soundtrack. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said when it's repeated at dawn - our hotel being a little too close to a set of speakers for our liking!

All in all, we really enjoyed being in Udaipur. We had a really relaxing couple of days and spent our time in comparable luxury (based on recent standards anyway!).

Oh yeah, and Gemma 'Immelda' Dundas bought 3 more pairs of shoes (for a grand total of 9 pounds)! We may have to move house again when we get home!