Three nights is the shape that works. One for the City Palace and the crystal gallery, one for the lake - Jag Mandir, the ghats, a rowed boat at dusk - and one for the country outside town, where Eklingji, Nagda and the stepwells at Ahar sit within an hour's drive. Kumbhalgarh and Ranakpur take a fourth night, driven as a day loop rather than a change of hotel.

Hotels cover the full range, from the island palaces on Pichola to small owner-run havelis on the ghats where a room facing the water costs a fraction of the same view next door. We will tell you which is worth the surcharge in which month, and which heritage rooms are too small to enjoy.

The old quarter is walkable and impossible to drive in. Our chauffeurs park below and you climb the last two hundred metres, which decides the right hotel for a guest travelling with a stick or with small children - worth saying at the enquiry stage.