Mount Valley

# WelcomHeritage Mount Valley Resort, Ranthambore

Five kilometres from the gates of Ranthambore National Park, about ten minutes in a jeep, Mount Valley is where the Aravalli range meets the Vindhyan plateau, and the resort is built to look at both. The building itself is done in traditional Rajput haveli style, jharokhas and all, standing in the hilly terrain above Sawai Madhopur with the park's forest in view.

A proper base for tiger country

This is the largest property in our Ranthambore set: 47 rooms across four categories. Deluxe Rooms (15 of them) face the greenery around the resort; Club Rooms add a traditional jharokha window seat within 330 square feet; the six Super Deluxe Jungle View rooms put four-poster beds in front of jungle views; and two Maharaja Suites add garden views, a bathtub and a family room. Between safaris there is an outdoor swimming pool, a lawn, indoor games, bird watching, folk dance evenings and a bonfire, plus a kids' play area, which matters when a family safari trip hits the middle of the day.

Forty-seven rooms, one restaurant, and the park gate ten minutes down the road.

Fed and ferried

Jharokha, the multi-cuisine restaurant, majors in authentic Rajasthani cooking alongside pan-Indian, Chinese and Continental dishes, and seats 90, so pre-dawn safari breakfasts do not descend into chaos. Logistics are simple by Ranthambore standards: Sawai Madhopur Junction is minutes away (the hotel's own pages put it at 2 kilometres in one place and 4 in another), Jaipur is 179 kilometres or about 3 hours by road, and Ranthambore Fort with its Ganesha temple makes an 8-kilometre outing on a no-safari afternoon. The resort is part of WelcomHeritage's palaces, forts and havelis collection, and it shows in the detailing.

Our take: the boutique havelis of this region are lovely, but if you want jungle views from a jharokha window seat and a pool for the afternoons, this is the sensible booking.