Umaid Bhawan Palace

The Maharaja's family still lives here, which is either charming or slightly awkward depending on your tolerance for sharing a postcode with royalty. The Taj-managed hotel wing occupies sixty-four rooms inside a working palace, and unlike the many Indian hotels pretending to that fantasy, this one doesn't have to pretend. The Art Deco bones are the tell: younger than its peers, and committed to it, with a personality that outlasts the marble.