Jaipur's signature building, the Hawa Mahal, a multi layered palace, was built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II. Famous for it's beehive like structure, the Mahal is an interplay of red and pink sand stone, carefully and painstakingly outlined with white borders and motifs. The palaces and forts of yesteryears, which were witness to the royal processions and splendours are now living monuments, accepted quite naturally into the lifestyle of the people of the "Pink City".

Falling under the Golden Triangle, and being visited by millions of domestic and foreign tourists, the city of Jaipur is a place of high tourist interest. The Pink City, as commonly known, has all sorts of amenities for domestic and foreign tourists. Hotels ranging from 5 star to low budgets are available. The city is linked by Rail, Road, and Air and attracts high traffic in winters.

At the entrance to the City Palace is Jantar Mantar, the 'Yantralaya' of Sawai Jai Singh II, the last great classical astronomer in India. The modernistic structures known as 'Yantras' are the unique creations of this astronomer-king designed by him and built by experts to observe the movements of sun, moon, planets and the stars.

This is the largest of five observatories founded by him in 1716 AD. The others are at Delhi, Ujjain, Mathura & Varanasi. Its massive masonry instruments are of an extraordinary precision & can still be used to measure local time, the sun's declination, azimuth & altitude, the declination of fixed stars & planets & also to determine the time of an eclipse of the sun.

Located in the central pavilion of the elaborate sprawling Jai Niwas Garden, to the north of the magnificent Chandra Mahal, is the miniature temple of Lord Krishna. The idol of Shri Krishna, originally kept in a temple in Vrindavan, was installed here by Sawai Jai Singh II, as the ruling deity of his family.

Sri Govinddevji, the family deity of Amber's Kachawaha Dynasty, now dwells in Jaipur, along with his consort Radha. The image, nevertheless, earlier existed in Vrindaban, where the Lord resided in the great temple built for him by Raja Mansingh, which was consecrated in 1590 AD.

Govinddevji was symbolic of Mansingh's power and became the focus of political interaction of the Mughal Emperor and the Kachawahas and, hence, an object of imperial and royal patronage. In the end of the seventeenth century, Govinddevji and Radha, accompanied by Vrindaban's tutelary goddess, Vrindadevi, were taken to the Amber territory to protect them from damage by the hands of iconoclasts.