When I first started planning my Rajasthan trip, I’d never heard of the city of Bundi. But the official state website drew me in with romantic photos of “the city of stepwells,” promising a place with a “fairy tale quality.” I was sold. I booked two days. And I saw remarkable things. But as I enjoyed my days in town, I often found myself wondering: is Bundi worth visiting?

Bundi sits roughly halfway between Jaipur and Udaipur, which makes it a reasonably convenient stop if you’re traveling through Rajasthan and have a driver. But it’s also off most beaten paths, so you’ll have to do a little extra work to get there.

The Best of Bundi

Despite my occasional reservations, there’s a lot to love in Bundi, from blue streets to historic architecture (if you’re a royalty fan, the Hada Chauhan Rajput dynasty ruled here from the 14th century until 1947). Here are the things that most drew my attention.

Bundi Palace (Garh Palace)

It seems that every Rajasthani city has a palace, but Bundi Palace stands out.

Described as one of the largest royal complexes in India, this is actually a collection of buildings erected by one ruler after another over the course of three centuries. You’ll discover a wonderful warren of terraces, staircases, and passageways. And just when you think you’ve reached your limit of doorways, balconies, and windows, you’ll find a few more.

The architectural details here are lovely, especially in the many-columned rooms where kings would have held their audiences.

But the real treats here are the surviving murals and miniatures that decorate a few dazzling rooms. Don’t miss the Palace of Clouds (Badal Mahal), with its elaborately painted ceilings, and the mirrors and tiny niche artwork of Chattar Mahal.

My other favorite elements? It’s quiet and empty. We often had spaces entirely to ourselves, and we loved clambering around with nary a guard in sight.

Also, the queens had a swing! Okay, the swing itself isn’t there anymore, but you can still see the amazingly tall pillars and arch beneath which seventeenth-century queens once relaxed and looked out over the valley.

They would have had quite a view.

On the downside, since we did not have a guide, I rarely knew what I was looking at. Bundi Palace is not exactly filled with labels — you would not call it a curated attraction. It’s also neither the flashiest nor the most tidily scrubbed palace we visited in Rajasthan. But I loved it for what it was.

The Blue Streets of Bundi

The most famous Blue City in Rajasthan is Jodhpur, but Bundi shares that nickname. Once upon a time, members of the Brahmin caste painted their walls a lush bluish-purple to mark their status. Eventually, that tradition evolved, and everyone is now free to follow suit. So you’ll walk down narrow streets that feel glowing and mysterious, even where the paint is crumbling away.

Painted Walls & Doorways

Tourism websites happily tout Bundi’s blue streets, but I wish they’d give equal attention to the city’s doorways and walls. The painted decorations here are just remarkable.

Life on the Streets

You can see life go by in any Indian city, but there’s something special about experiencing daily scenes on a smaller scale. Pigs, cows, and monkeys share the streets with motorcycles carrying brass milk jugs, and wedding-band buggis with shiny trumpet horns sit by the side of the road. Some of my favorite moments in Bundi were watching milk sellers chatting in a parking lot, a betel nut vendor painting paste onto leaves, and a cow helping itself to dinner from an unsuspecting merchant’s stall.

Markets and Roadside Stalls

I love a good market — fresh fruits and veggies, flowers, heaps of chilies. Markets in India are all the more rewarding for their color and bounty, and Bundi had plenty to offer. Even the brooms are stacked in great heaps.

Kites in the Sky

Kite flying in Bundi is an age-old pastime — you can even find eighteenth-century miniature paintings of women flying kites in a palace garden. Today, hundreds of kites fill the skies during the January festival of Makar Sankranti. And no matter what time of year, you’ll find kite makers …

… kite sellers …

… and boys (from what we saw, this seems to be a gendered activity) flying kites from the rooftops all over town.

A Dinner of Surprises

Few dinners will ever be as memorable as the night we spent at Jay Cafe. In this instance, “cafe” meant “balcony on the second floor of a private home.” When we arrived, Jay greeted us with rose garlands, and we walked up the narrow staircase to find a tablecloth strewn with rose petals. For dinner, Jay served us a meal home-cooked by his family (delicious; no menus).

The surprises that followed included a town-wide blackout and then lots of candles. The lassis were so good that we went back the next day for more.

The City of Stepwells: A Love-Hate Relationship

Bundi is known as the City of Stepwells, which adds to its romantic allure. There are reportedly over fifty of these underground water tanks scattered throughout the city, with dramatic stairs and steep walls. These include Dhabhai Kund (the Geometric Square Well) …

… and Raniji ki Baori (Raniji’s Stepwell).

There’s no denying the architectural greatness of these spaces, each with its own distinct style of stone carving.

But the stepwells have a problem: at every one we saw, the water looked terrible.

And that’s one of the cleaner stepwells. In every stepwell we visited in the more public areas of town, litter and algae floated atop the water, and more trash often lined the steps. So any fantasies I’d had of looking down into a mysterious pool and losing myself in the moment quickly disappeared.

Bundi Challenges

Trash in the Streets

Bundi is hardly alone in having a trash problem, but I encountered far more here than I’d expected.

I wouldn’t say that this trash heap is representative, but scenes like this were far from unusual. They made wandering around less enjoyable — when you’re looking for beautiful things, or just trying to get a sense of everyday life, trash is more than a bit distracting.

An Overgrown Fort

I was looking forward to tromping around Taragarh Fort, built high on the hill above Bundi in the fourteenth century. But the road there looked more precarious than I was prepared to tackle on a hot afternoon.

The fort may look attractive from afar, but even the state’s official website calls it “a bit ramshackle and strewn with overgrown vegetation.” That’s not exactly a welcoming invitation. So we spent our time exploring other parts of the city.

Limited Tourist Infrastructure

A variety of travel websites describe Bundi as an offbeat, hidden, and undiscovered gem, one that offers a “slice of ‘real India.'” All of that should tell you that this city is not on most tourists’ itineraries. So you’ll find limited restaurant and lodging options — it all feels a little rough around the edges. Our hotel, for example, offered incredible rooftop views of the fort and the palace at night …

… but during the day, the advertised view involved looking at laundry as well.

On the plus side, because Bundi is off the beaten path, both rooms and meals are remarkably inexpensive. You won’t need to break open your piggy bank for Bundi.

Is Bundi Worth Visiting?

At the end of the day, I would say that Bundi is worth a visit, with three important caveats:

• Plan a Limited Visit: We stayed for two days, which felt like plenty.
• Be Prepared for Challenges: You’ll want to be on the intrepid side to tackle Bundi. Because it’s not a common tourist destination, you may have more difficulty finding guides and places to eat than in better-known cities like Jaipur and Udaipur.
• A Note on Safety: While walking at night with my husband, I was groped by a young man riding by on a motorcycle. I don’t know if this is at all common in Bundi, but it was a disturbing incident. Women may want to take extra care while walking after dark.

If you enjoy well-preserved architecture, busy streets, and the faded outlines of royal history beyond the reaches of most tourism, you might want to add Bundi to your itinerary. I’m not sure I’d add it at the expense of places like Jaipur (I’d go back there for the observatory alone). But if you have time, especially if you want to break up a long drive, I would consider a detour.

Heading to Mumbai on your India trip? Don’t miss my post on two days of markets, museums, and architecture.