Neemrana - choose your room and your century

Neemrana is located about 122 kms south of Delhi and it seems to be an unlikely place in an unlikely setting but it is even more unbelievable when you finally find it.

I will not pretend that getting out of Delhi on the highway is anything other than sheer madness. The roads out of Gurgaon are chocker block and flooded -

The highway - what highway - it has been under construction repair and renovation for as long as we have been here, is non existant - Hence do not be surprised when you are travelling down to see cars and trucks coming up on your side of the highway as in the picture above. On our journey, the cars and trucks coming in the opposite direction were so many that we were thrown off the road and into the ditch !

So persevere is all I can say. Dusty dirty, dangerous ...but you turn into some industrial estate and through some back streets and there perched on the hill is Neemrana Fort Palace. The baby of a couple of men with an eye for detail and a love of history.

Here it is a fort perched high in the hills spanning the centuries - lousy picture apologies

The entrance and passage up to the fort

 Our sitting room

Our bathroon

 One of the pools and the hanging gardens

The fort is perched on the side of a hill and it is an assortment of 14th century ruins with subsequent centuries of tasteful additions brought screamingly and happily into the 21st with considerable success. Dont come if you dont like stairs as the place is a rabbit warren of hidden passages and stairs some of which lead to rooms, others not.

We explored the village and the baoli , a nine storey step-well of some grandeur and proportions, sadly now the home of bats and rubbish but reminiscent of the ingenuity of those forebearers who managed such contructions without even one JCB in the area.There is of course a zip wire as well which can amuse the younger more adventurous among us and some foolhardy oldies too.

Pretend you are an Indian princess and step out onto your roof top and survey the beautiful land below and holler for that prince. Mine was right round the corner.But the best was yet to come...