Mysore Palace

The palace at the centre of Mysore was rebuilt after a fire and completed in 1912 to a design by the British architect Henry Irwin, in the Indo-Saracenic manner: domes, arcades and canopied towers over what is essentially an Edwardian plan. Inside, the route runs through a marriage pavilion under a stained glass ceiling of peacocks, a durbar hall opening onto a balcony above the parade ground, and rooms of carved rosewood doors, cast iron columns and painted panels showing the processions of the old Dasara festival. On Sunday evenings and public holidays the whole outline of the building is picked out by tens of thousands of bulbs for a short window, which is what most photographs of it show.

What you actually see

• The Kalyana Mantapa - the octagonal marriage pavilion under a peacock stained glass dome.
• The Durbar Hall - the painted and gilded audience hall opening onto a colonnaded balcony.
• The procession paintings - long painted panels showing the Dasara procession in detail.
• The evening illumination - the facade outlined in bulbs on Sundays and public holidays.

When to go

October to February is dry and cool. The illumination runs for a short window on Sunday evenings and public holidays; check the times locally and arrive early, because the grounds fill. Dasara in autumn is the palace's big festival and the city is packed for it. Weekday mornings are far quieter inside than any weekend.

Honest expectations

Photography inside is not allowed and phones are checked at the door, which frustrates people. Shoes come off and you shuffle through in a slow line on a fixed route. Queues at the ticket counter and the shoe deposit are long on weekends and holidays. The building is barely a century old, and visitors expecting a medieval palace often say so.

Nearby

Chamundi Hill overlooks the city, and Srirangapatna with its river island monuments is a short drive north.