Dear Luxury Traveller,

India does not merely offer luxury - it offers legacy. From the sacred ghats of the Ganges to the sun-bleached ramparts of Rajasthan, from the UNESCO-listed ruins of Hampi to the erotic temple carvings of Khajuraho, this is a land where history is not confined to museums - it lives, breathes, and lavishes you with attention. In this curated edition, we have assembled seven extraordinary palace stays that transform India's most storied destinations into your private stage. Each property carries the weight of centuries while delivering the seamless comforts of the world's finest hotels. Pack your finest linens. India awaits.

Erected in 1812 on the famed Darbhanga Ghat, BrijRama Palace is the second oldest palace in Varanasi - and its most romantically positioned. Guests arrive by boat, gliding across the Ganges to a sandstone façade restored over eighteen years, its gilded frescoes and Maratha Dynasty archways faithfully intact.

The 32 rooms range from the semi-circular Varuna Burj suite - a sweeping 180-degree river panorama - to the Maharaja Suite with its marble slipper bath overlooking the Ganga. Every corner is dressed in Banarasi silk, hand-painted motifs, and carved four-poster beds.

Evenings in the inner courtyard, Bada Aangan, unfold to live classical music. Mornings begin on the riverside terrace - temple bells, mist rising off the water, yoga at first light. The Ganges has been composing this wake-up call for millennia. BrijRama simply ensured you have the finest seat to hear it.

Dive into BrijRama Palace

Bordering the legendary Vijayanagara ruins - a 16th-century empire once celebrated as the most magnificent city on earth - Evolve Back Kamalapura Palace commands Karnataka's most theatrical setting. Cobbled stone boulevards, lily-flanked ponds, and latticed lanterns usher you toward a peachy-hued palace of multi-tiered domes, its architecture drawn directly from the Zenana enclosures of the fallen empire. Ancient boulders rise behind it; peacocks hold court in the gardens ahead.

Accommodation spans intimate Zenana Suites, inspired by the Queen's Quarters, to private-pool Jal Mahal villas modelled on the Water Palace. Dining unfolds across five curated experiences - among them Aanandha, a five-course meal beside your private pool, and By the Boulders, a candlelit dinner under an open sky. Evenings close with Bharatanatyam performances and a resident historian bringing a lost empire quietly back to life.

Discover Evolve Back Hampi

Crowning the Maniyagarh Hills within a 76-acre lakeside estate, The Oberoi Rajgarh Palace is among the most celebrated luxury openings in India today. Built by Maharaja Hindu Pat of the Bundela Dynasty and framed by ancient Sal and Palash forests, the 350-year-old fortress looks toward Panna National Park - still home to the Royal Bengal tiger. A decade-long Oberoi restoration has preserved every arch, courtyard, and subterranean passage while weaving in their signature contemporary refinement.

Sixty-five rooms and suites - including the two-bedroom Kohinoor Suite with its private pool and sweeping garden panoramas - are dressed in warm limestone with clerestory windows that bathe interiors in natural light. The spa is reached by private boat across the palace lake, arriving at tented waterside treatment suites. Beyond the walls, the dawn "Footsteps of the Chandela" temple tour and Oberoi-guided Panna tiger safaris await.

Experience Oberoi Rajgarh

"Falaknuma" - mirror of the sky - is no idle poetry. Perched 2,000 feet above Hyderabad, this scorpion-shaped Italian-marble palace, built in 1893 by Nawab Sir Viqar-ul-Umra and later acquired by the sixth Nizam, contains 22 ceremonial halls, a dining table for 101 guests, and a 2-tonne hand-operated organ in its ballroom. A decade-long restoration by Princess Esra - the last Nizam's Turkish wife - revived all 60 rooms using original hand-crafted techniques alone. Taj Hotels later assumed stewardship in 2010, investing years of meticulous work to open the palace as one of India's most opulent addresses.

Arrival is pure theatre: a horse-drawn carriage escorts guests through the palace gates, as the Nizam's most honoured visitors once entered. The library houses jade-bound Qurans and manuscripts of breathtaking rarity. The Nizam Suite - a duplex with a private pool and personal butler - is the crown of the collection. At Adaa, the signature restaurant, slow-cooked Nizami recipes honour the monarchy's legendary obsession with cuisine.

Book Taj Falaknuma

Over a decade in the making, Six Senses Fort Barwara is India's most patiently realised luxury retreat. The 14th-century walled fort - encompassing two original palaces and two living temples, all restored using traditional Rajasthani techniques - announces its intentions the moment you pass through its ancient sandstone gates. The Six Senses Spa occupies the original Zanana Mahal women's palace across 30,000 square feet of vaulted, candlelit calm. Private terraces look out over Barwara Lake toward the hilltop Chauth ka Barwara Mandir - a view that makes waking early feel like a privilege.

Forty-eight all-suites, adorned with Shekhawati art and carved Jali screens, range from 753 to 3,014 square feet. Every guest is assigned a personal GEM - Guest Experience Maker - on call around the clock for tiger safaris at Ranthambore, fort heritage walks, and open-fire cooking sessions. The Alchemy Bar invites guests to craft bespoke wellness products from the fort's own organic garden.

Explore Six Senses Fort

Some addresses cannot be invented - only inherited. RAAS Jodhpur sits within the living fabric of the Old Walled City, in the commanding shadow of Mehrangarh Fort, one of the great fortresses of the world. An original 18th-century haveli anchors four heritage structures alongside three contemporary additions, all united in Jodhpur's warm red sandstone and adorned with carvings drawn directly from the haveli tradition. Old and new converse here without compromise.

Forty rooms and suites face Mehrangarh's illuminated ramparts - a view that reaches its most arresting at dusk, when the fortress glows violet against the Rajasthani sky. Darikhana's elevated terrace frames the fort over every meal; the Rooftop Bar claims arguably the city's finest sundowner position. What distinguishes RAAS beyond its setting is its character: a non-tipping culture, a signature blue tuk-tuk fleet, and an immersive Bishnoi Village Safari that few larger palace hotels would think to offer.

Retreat to RAAS Jodhpur

No title in Indian hospitality is more earnestly deserved than Rambagh's "Jewel of Jaipur." Built in 1835 as a royal garden retreat and expanded into a full palace under Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II, it became India's first luxury palace hotel in the 1950s before Taj Hotels assumed stewardship in 1972. Fifty-three acres of Mughal-formal gardens - geometric flowerbeds, lotus ponds, water channels, and resident peacocks - create an island of palatial calm within the Pink City.

Seventy-eight rooms and suites include the very chambers once occupied by the Maharaja himself, dressed in Udaipur stone arches, crystal chandeliers, and French windows opening onto the gardens. Suvarna Mahal - one of India's most gilded dining rooms - serves royal Rajasthani recipes beneath original Florentine ceiling paintings and gold-plated service. The Polo Bar, lined with the late Maharaja's trophies and silverware, remains Jaipur's most legendary address for an evening drink.

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If the seven palaces above have stirred something within you, consider this: India is only the beginning. In our latest journal, Month of Romance: Six Destinations Where Love Finds Its Own Language, we turn our gaze to the world's most quietly intoxicating addresses for couples - from the snow-dusted grandeur of Badrutt's Palace in St. Moritz, where fireside evenings feel like a private ceremony, to a medieval hilltop village in Provence where love arrives without an agenda. For the luxury traveller, romance is no longer a gesture - it is a destination chosen with intention, a pace set deliberately slow, and a world that gently steps aside. These are the places where connection deepens and memories hold.

Read the Full Blog → Month of Romance

India, Through a Royal Lens

From sacred rivers to desert citadels, from temple towns to princely capitals - these seven stays are not simply hotels. They are custodians of history, elevated by world-class hospitality.

For the traveller who has seen the world - this is India at its most refined.

Begin your royal journey
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