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Plate III · iv · b · The City

Jaipur

One entry, one hour, and a building that nobody warns you is the best thing in it.

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A carved sandstone museum pavilion standing alone in a formal garden at dusk
Plate III · iv · b · The park front

Stand in the garden first. Half of what you came to see is on the outside of the walls.

A day, properly arranged
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February, at opening. An hour later it is a different building entirely.

The entries

One, and I have stood in it.
A high vaulted hall with carved arches, a painted ceiling and rows of display cases
Interior · look up before you look in

Everyone comes in reading labels. The argument is over their heads, and it was made first.

FEBRUARY, AT OPENING
Notes for Jaipur

The coaches are the whole planning problem. I was there at opening and had perhaps forty minutes of quiet; by the time I left it was a scandal, and I do not think the rooms can be read at all in that state. Set the alarm rather than the itinerary.

Go round the outside before you go in. The building is the finer object here — nobody tells you that, and the guidebooks are all busy listing what is in the cases instead. Give it a slow circuit of the garden first and the inside makes better sense.

This is one entry in a city with a great deal more in it. I have not earned pages on the rest of Jaipur yet, and I would rather say so than pad this one out.

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