The Laxmi Niwas Palace

Sir Ganga Singh of Bikaner commissioned Laxmi Niwas Palace in 1904, partly as a stately residence for the royal house and partly, in the practical Bikaneri way, to employ the townspeople. He supervised the artists, masons and builders personally, and the friezes, symmetry, filigree and latticed screens are credited to his own eye. Royal guests famously overstayed, sometimes by months. The restoration took its brief from photographs of 1937, the year of King George's visit and the Second Durbar, so what you sleep in is the palace as it looked at its ceremonial peak.

Rooms with provenance

Rooms run from Deluxe through Historical Suites and Palace Rooms to the Royal Suites, keeping original chintz, drapery, Empire furniture, hand-painted walls and gilt-embossed gold panelling. The Ganga Mahal royal bedroom carries twin images of Surya the Sun God on a carved Burma teak ceiling in blue; the Palace Room has a canopied four-poster, a card table and a pair of bronze horses that are offered freshly mown fescue from the lawns daily, which is the kind of detail you cannot invent.

The bronze horses are fed fresh-cut grass every day.

Swarna Mahal, the main restaurant, sits under usta art on an old Burma teak ceiling; Hari Mahal takes the larger dinners. The Trophy Bar is decorated with the spoils of royal hunts and the Billiards Room hangs fourteen tiger trophies, history presented straight rather than sanitised. The pool is where viceroys once took their post-prandial exercise, hard tennis courts sit south-west of the gardens with racquets on loan, and evening courtyard performances (fire dances, ghazals, kalbelia, jugglers) can be arranged with a day's notice.

Ten minutes' walk from Junagarh

The palace stands on Dr. Karni Singhji Road with Junagadh Fort a ten-minute walk away; the January Camel Festival, the Karni Mata temple at Deshnoke 30 km south and the National Camel Research farm fill the excursion card. Film crews keep finding the place, which tells you how intact it is.