Inside a Heritage Haveli: Staying at The Blue Root in Udaipur's Old City

The Blue Root is a five-bedroom heritage home on Chabila Bheru Marg, in the lanes behind Udaipur's City Palace. City Palace is about a kilometre away, Karni Mata Temple two and a half, and Udaipur Junction three. You can book a single room from around ₹9,000 a night, or take the whole house, which sleeps eleven. That last part is the unusual bit, and it is why this page exists.

What a haveli stay is, and is not

A heritage home in Udaipur's old city is not a hotel with old furniture. It is a house that a family lived in, adapted rather than gutted, which means it comes with the logic of a house. Rooms sit on different floors and are reached by staircases, not corridors. Ceilings vary. Windows are jharokhas, the projecting stone balconies you have seen in every photograph of Rajasthan, and they are lovely to sit in and terrible for blackout curtains.

What you get in exchange is a building with proportions no modern hotel reproduces, and a location no modern hotel can buy, because nothing new gets built inside those lanes.

It is worth being straight about the trade-offs. There is no lawn and no full-size pool. Cars cannot always reach the door. If your group includes someone who cannot manage stairs, the upper rooms are not for them. Nobody should book a heritage home expecting a resort.

The five rooms, and how to choose between them

Each room at Blue Root kept its original name, which tells you what it was for.

Darikhana, ground floor

Darikhana means a hall for receiving guests. It sits on the ground floor with handcrafted furniture, soft lighting and earthy tones, and an attached bathroom with modern fittings. This is the room to ask for if stairs are a concern, and the one that works best for parents travelling with the group.

Badi Medhi, upper terrace

Badi Medhi translates to the main or upper terrace. A queen bed, an attached bathroom, and adjoining it a traditional baithak, the low sit-down space that older Rajasthani homes always kept for conversation. Good for a couple who want somewhere to sit that is not the bed.

Choti Medhi, first floor

The most practical of the five. A double bed, a generous layout, and contemporary sit-out areas. It gets used by business and solo travellers as often as by couples, which is a fair description of what it is good at.

Ori, second floor

Two double beds and an attached bathroom, with morning light coming in through the chabutara. The right room for four people sharing, or for a family with older children.

Aakashiya, second floor

The largest room in the house. King bed, attached bathroom, and a sit-out at the jharokha that is the best place in the building to read. If you are booking one room and want the best one, this is it.

Room, or the whole house?

Individual rooms run from roughly ₹9,000 to ₹13,500 a night depending on which one and when. The entire five-bedroom house starts around ₹15,000.

Read those two numbers again, because the arithmetic is unusual. Two rooms booked separately cost close to what the whole house costs. If you are four people or more, taking the full property is almost always the better decision: you get the courtyard, the open kitchen, the living space and the terrace to yourselves, with nobody else moving through the house.

Groups of two to three should book a single room. Groups of four and up should book the house. There is very little in between.

Eating here

The kitchen is open, and it is pure vegetarian, as every Viraalay home is. Breakfast comes with the stay. Lunch, dinner and high tea are arranged on request with at least twenty-four hours' notice, which is enough time to accommodate Jain preferences, no-onion-no-garlic cooking, allergies or a birthday.

The thing people book this house for, more than anything else, is a candlelit dinner in the courtyard. It is not a package or an add-on. It is what the space does naturally once the sun goes down.

What is walkable from the door

• City Palace, about 1 km. Opens at 9:30 AM, and the first hour is much quieter than the rest of the day.
• Karni Mata Temple, about 2.5 km, reachable by the ropeway from Dudh Talai. Best at sunset.
• Fateh Sagar Lake, about 4 km.
• Sajjangarh, the Monsoon Palace, about 8 km. Arrive by 4:30 PM.
• Shilpgram, about 6 km, and worth timing a trip around if your dates fall near the Shilpgram Utsav in late December.
• Eklingji is 21 km out and Kumbhalgarh 82, both comfortable day trips.

Getting here: Udaipur Junction is 3 km, Fatehpura bus stand 4 km, and Maharana Pratap Airport 21 km.

Practical notes

Check-in is 2:00 PM and check-out 11:00 AM. The house has air conditioning, wifi, geysers, power backup, indoor games, a washing machine and organic toiletries. Pets are not permitted. Smoking is restricted to designated areas and chewing tobacco is not allowed anywhere on the property. Daily housekeeping is part of the stay and coordinated with the caretaker.

House rules ask for reasonable noise levels between 10 PM and 7 AM, and loud parties are not permitted. This is a residential lane with neighbours, and that rule is the reason the house still feels like a home rather than a venue.

Who this house suits

Couples who want the old city rather than a lake view from four kilometres away. Families of eight to eleven who would rather share a courtyard than a hotel corridor. Anyone travelling for Eklingji, Nathdwara or the Mewar temple circuit who wants a vegetarian kitchen and a short walk to the ghats. Photographers, because the light through the jharokhas at seven in the morning does most of the work for you.

Anyone who wants a pool, a lawn and a car parked at the door should look at our foothill villas instead. We will tell you that on the call.

See The Blue Root, or browse the full collection.