We left the Agra hotel early, if not bright, in order to reach our final Agra-based site - Fatehpuri Sikri or The City of Victory. This monument is also known as the Forgotten City and was such a sight to see. It was founded in 1571 by the Mughal emperor Akbar to celebrate the birth of his son and heir (despite many wives, he’d remained heirless until 1569.) The city was the capital of the Mughal empire until just 1585 when Akbar departed to fight a military campaign. He only visited it once more after that and prior to his death in 1601. It’s believed to have been completely abandoned due to a lack of water.

It must have been something fairly serious to cause the abandonment because it is a beautfully designed city - but on the same note, Agra was a major city in its own right and only 12 km away. It is now beautifully restored and the red sandstone positively glows in the heat of an early summers day in India - it’s not difficult to believe a lack of sufficient rain water was more than enough reason for it to become the forgotten city. We enjoyed the history of the final ruler, Akbar, the most. He became emperor very young and gathered knowledge from academics and holy men far and wide in order to become a good emperor. He even developed a composite religion by taking parts of all the religions he knew of at the time and played ‘fair’ in household affairs too - a Hindu wife, a Muslim wife, a Christian wife - all 3 queens had beautiful apartments within the complex.

The size and complexity of the large archeological structures in India, as fascinating as they are, mean there is simply no such thing as a quick visit. The heat had really kicked in by the time we finished at this site and it felt like a glaring 40 odd degrees (though in reality only 32 or so). Within the walls of the city with no breeze to be had and with the heat being absorbed and radiated by the red sandstone, it did however feel like we were the victims of a large oven.

It was a colossal relief to reach a palace in Bharatpur for lunch. In this case a hotel with the word palace in the name, but nevertheless large, beautiful, relatively cool and with lots of tinkling fountains. A booming drummer met us off the coach and drummed us inside where we received a wreath of marigolds (our first since the Ranthambore Regency, also in Rajasthan) and the traditional coloured dot on the forehead. The lunch was one of the few meals actually included in the tour package (other than breakfast) and was superb. Not least because of the scrumptious tandoori chicken - we went to town on that. Really very enjoyable. Which was lucky, because after lunch we hit the road again. Initially for an hour or so on relatively good roads (that is ‘bad’ anywhere else in the world), then far too long on horrendous country roads, bouncing and jouncing all over the shop, in order to reach Karauli - the seat belts on the coach were barely up to regular operations - this was beyond them.

Our destination, the rural town of Karauli, was a princely state of India from 1348 until 1949. We reached Karauli in the late afternoon and walked through the market area, through the city gates and into the walled city. It was a colourful walk in many ways and the people were very reserved and went about their business without being all over us. Quite strange but lovely really. The local maharaja must still hold a great deal of sway with regard to how to treat the holy (cash) cows on two legs (that would be us). In any event a beautiful amble and just a shame we didn’t have time to stop and peruse the shops - full of silks, bangles and likely very interesting things.

Our first port of call at the end of the walk was a private visit and tour of the Karauli city palace. The current Maharaja (181st in the Royal Dynasty) and the Maharani of Karauli are restoring the palace which is proving to be a phenomenal endeavour. The palace has grown organically over the course of 500 odd years which each ruler adding a room, a hall, a level or a wing. The maharaja (who was on business in Germany) had a staff member escort us through the massive palace and the ceiling paintings, mirrored ceilings, pierced marble screens and views over the town were amazing. It was an incredible tour for many reasons, not the least being we had the palace to ourselves, however it was never-ending. No sooner did we reach a rooftop, than we found another one, two, three rooftops on different levels and from different eras still remained. It was a mammoth visit and no one was particularly interested in another temple to follow it (view from one of many roof tops, pictured).

The sun was setting by the time we left the palace and entered the Madan Mohan Ji Temple just next door for the evening Aarti prayers. This was a very colourful, Hindu ceremony involving flame offerings to one of the gods, copious amounts of singing and dancing and rhythmic drumming. The devotees were particularly fervent due to the Holi festival (festival of colours) being due to start in a couple of days time. We made a discreet exit (easy to do when you’re creeping about in bare feet) and returned to the main palace gate before embarking on a hair-raising tuk tuk ride to our lodgings for the night. Another palace - The Bharwan Vilas Palace. Same maharaja though.

The dynasty moved out of the palace we’d just visited in 1938 and into this new/modern/well equipped property. It must have seemed the absolute height of luxury in its time (and, to be fair, still would be to the poor residents of Karauli). The royal family live here to this day and have recently opened the Bhanwar Vilas as a 3-4 star heritage property. Our room was adequate though certainly not palatial - definitely more one of the 3 star rooms we think. The property itself seems much more like a bit of a stately home than a palace, lacked wifi everywhere but the lobby (and even then...) and had hot water cylinders in each room that could be relied upon to provide a large coffee - but struggled with providing more than a determined squirt of water for showers - a shame, as the property itself has a huge amount of potential but just kept missing the mark. Wherever there was a mark, it missed it. We took 15 minutes to get our room and our bags reunited and then strolled to a large dining hall that felt more ‘school caf’ than Harry Potter’s great hall and had a nice enough buffet dinner. Nothing that toning the bright lights down, adding candles, fresh flowers and a bit more atmosphere couldn’t have fixed - but hey - still a ‘palace’. Thankfully it was only the one night as we’re sure the mattresses in our room were installed in 1938 when the place was built and have been used every night since. People less fond of sleep than us have said “you can sleep when you’re dead” - our preference is not to be rushed to that state of being by shocking beds. Ah well, India is undoubtedly ‘hard terrain’.

Tomorrow? Jaipur after a mere 5 hours or so of driving and revisiting today’s diabolical country roads. Jaipur is the bustling capital of the state of Rajasthan (fond thoughts of our recent wonderful tiger safaris in Rajasthan). On a positive note... Kingfisher Beer is cheaper in Rajasthan than anywhere else in our northern travels. And has a lovely label. And is a much safer bet than $50 for a bottle of Jacob’s Creek. Eeek!