Chittorgarh

Chittorgarh was Mewar's capital for eight centuries before Udaipur, and the fort, listed by UNESCO in 2013, still fills a whole tableland above the Berach river. You enter through seven gates on a winding road, and the plateau opens onto 700 acres of ruined palaces, 22 surviving reservoirs and temples from the eighth to the sixteenth centuries. Vijay Stambh, the Victory Tower, was raised by Rana Kumbha in 1448 after defeating Mahmud Khilji of Malwa: nine storeys, 37 metres, every inch carved with gods, and you can climb it.

Kirti Stambh, older and Jain, is dedicated to Adinath. Rana Kumbha's Palace is where the infant Udai Singh was smuggled out by his nurse Panna Dhai, and Padmini's Palace stands in its lotus pond where, the story goes, Alauddin Khilji glimpsed the queen in a mirror in 1303. The Meera Temple recalls the poet-saint who sang to Krishna here; Kalika Mata, originally an eighth-century Sun temple, is still busy with pilgrims.

Gaumukh Reservoir's spring feeds a tank where fish are fed as an offering. The sieges of 1303, 1535 and 1568 each ended with jauhar, the mass self-immolation of the fort's women, and the Jauhar Mela in February or March remembers them. Sanwariya Seth, a Krishna temple 40 km toward Udaipur, is the region's living pilgrimage.