Jaipur is the first planned city of north India, which is designed in accordance with Shilpa Shastra. An ancient Hindu treatise on architecture. Jaipur follows a grid system and its largely pink palaces and monuments have earned it the sobriquet of “ Pink City”. Today the city has spread beyond these walls of the old city maintains its pink look. Beautiful gardens and parks and attractive monuments, once the haunts of the royalty are still to be found everywhere. Traditional crafts like jewelry, metalwork, enameling, tie and dye, pottery, leatherwork, stone carving, and miniature painting, patronized by the rulers in the 18th century, continue to thrive to this day. Jaipur is an important city of Golden Triangle Tour Circuit.
The city is today a unique synthesis of the traditional and modern. Besides being the capital of the state of Rajasthan, Jaipur is also a bustling trading center. The new city has spacious roads dotted with upmarket luxury showrooms and the old city abounds with congested streets, bazaars, and artisan’s quarters. Providing a stunning backdrop to the city are the ancient forts and palaces which create a dramatic picture of a bygone era.
Jaipur in Rajasthan has the ancient downtown areas of the Badi and Choti Chowpar, and the Johari Bazar, that were the mainstay of local jewelers, who account for a large part of Jaipur’s economy. These markets retain the old city feel with their crowded streets, narrow bylanes, and crimson buildings from the time when the town was literally painted pink. Today, of course, new areas have come up that conform to contemporary tastes, especially with youngsters who are looking for purchases other than ethnic.
The choicest place for shopping with locals and tourists alike is the Hawa Mahal market neighboring the two chowpars for block printed fabrics, accessories, silverware, puppets, and other traditional souvenirs. Eating and outing are as much a custom with the Jaipurias as with their north Indian counterparts. And the list of restaurants is growing with the demand. This is a city that sleeps early. But the weekend culture is picking up and locals are growing out of their personal party culture to mingle with the crowd in the city at pubs and multiplexes like entertainments Plaza and Vaibhav are drawing crowds. On the lines of NCR’ small culture, these are developing as shopping centers, theatre complexes, and eating out places. They are packed on Sundays and with a visible increase in the spending capacity among the smaller families.
Jaipur is connected to Delhi by National Highway 8 and the distance of about 260 km can be easily covered in four to five hours, depending on the time of day.
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