Michael B
Google
After several Rajasthan trips staying at many different heritage places my wife and me still consider the Roopangarh Fort hotel as one of our favourites. It is located in the little walled town of Roopangarh with its lively market and where also - with the help of hotel staff - various non-touristy workshops can be visited - of stonemasons, carpenters or people working in textiles.||||Actually one doesn't stay in the 17th fort itself, but almost attached to it in a palace that was built later. There is a choice of differently styled rooms, most of them being unusually large with high ceilings, and all having beautiful Rajasthani furniture and decorations. We selected room 3, to which one goes up some steps from the big terrace, also used as a tennis court. This enormous room even has an interior French window, from which one can look down into the Durbar dining hall. Room 4 next door is of almost euqal size and then there is also the 'Queen's Suite' on the same level as the restaurant.||||Everything here has old world charm and one forgets that for example the water pressure of the shower is so weak that one ends up using the buckets provided There is showergel and shampoo . WiFi was okay with the help of a mini travel router that was handed out to us.||||Since we were alone during our stay we sat for dinner all by ourselves on the big terrace at a table especially put up there for us and lit by candles. Attentive staff looked after us. A gin tonic though was not available, just a vodka tonic (with Indian 'Romanov'). Breakfast again was at the tables in front of the dining hall. Served were bread, butter, jam, curd, bananas and a masala omlet by order. Coffee was nescafé powder.||||There was no noise to bother us, but at the specific hours we could hear very well the calls for prayer from the different mosques in town and then the chanting at the Hindu temples during the night, especially since we were there close to Diwali. For the first time in my life and having travelled extensively through Islamic countries I heard here a female muezzin calling for prayer. Religious tolerance is lived also at the place here, since the owners, the Hindu maharajas of Kishangarh, have accepted a quite big shrine between the fort and the big terrace in honour of a 12th century Muslim 'saint' by the name of Sultan Pir.||||There is enough to do out of Roopangarh, so we went with our car to the impressive marble quarries of Makrana not far away and to the Sambhar Salt Lake, which in comparison to Gujarat's Rann of Kurch though didn't impress me too much. What we didn't get to see was the old fort itself, since it were too dangerous, as told by the sfatt, because of many bees in there.||||A compliment goes to the people working at the hotel, whom my wife already knew from previous visits with friends. Once selected by the owners, they have most of them been working here for many years and know their job.
