Royal palaces galore accent this pink city

It's late afternoon and Ajmeri Gate is abuzz with activity. Beneath the monolithic arches, throngs of pedestrians Palaceflow back and forth between the old city and the sprawling web of modern Jaipur. The hum of the crowd hangs over this corner of the city, punctuated here and there by the tap-tap-tap of two-stroke engines as herds of auto-rickshaws sputter through, swerving their way around cyclists and the occasional bony-haunched cow.

By the side of the road, vendors hawk produce from roughly-hewn wooden carts or fry morsels of dough in cast-iron cauldrons. Families, balanced precariously on scooters, zip past, the women's saris blurs of color against the dusty coral-pink walls.

Jaipur is something of an anomaly among Indian cities. In a country where some cities can trace their roots back for well over a millennium, Jaipur is less than 300 years old, yet boasts a rich history as a seat of royal power. It was one of the few planned cities of its time, yet its gridded streets and zoning still draws praise from urban planners today. It's a city where, put simply, the past is tangled up in the present, the present is tangled up in the past, and the future is wrapped up somewhere in the middle.

Jaipur's story begins in Amber, a hilltop fort just northeast of the old city. The fort as we know it now took shape around the turn of the 17th century, when the ruling Kachwaha family, predecessors of the current Maharajas of Jaipur, began construction on a royal residence in their longtime capital of Amber.