Badi Mahal, also known as City Palace (सिटी पैलेस, उदयपुर), is a palace complex situated in the city of Udaipur (उदयपुर) in the Indian state of Rajasthan (राजस्थान). The construction of City Palace began in 1553, started by Maharana Udai Singh II (उदयसिंह द्वितीय).
The facade of the palace is huge and magnificent, but there is no decoration on the outer wall, and it looks a bit like an ordinary building at first glance.
Outside the main entrance is the Royal Garden, next to the Royal Garden there is a place for parking elephants, similar to the carpark nowadays.
If you want to go in with a camera, you have to buy extra tickets for the camera, and one camera needs one ticket. Cameras without tickets cannot be brought in and must be stored in another room, very strict.
The palace has now been converted into a museum, and no one has lived in it for a long time. The interior decoration of the palace is extremely delicate, in contrast to the simple exterior.
There is a ‘cornucopia’ carved from a single block of marble on the top floor. It is said that the ‘cornucopia’ used to be full of silver coins. During festivals, the king would throw those silver coins to the poor people outside the palace.
Although most of the furniture and treasures in the palace have been moved out, the decorations on the floors and walls remain intact, there is still plenty to see.
The palace is located on the east bank of Lake Pichola (पिछोला झील), you can overlook the entire city center of Udaipur and most of Lake Pichola, the scenery is not bad.
