The old city of Jaipur was painted pink in 1876 when Prince Albert, later King Edward VII, visited India, the entire walled city coordinated in the color of hospitality that Rajput tradition specified. The law that maintains the pink extends to buildings within the walled city, the uniformity creating visual coherence that Indian cities rarely achieve. The pink is not garish but warm, the terracotta shade aging gracefully, the effect enhanced by the shadows that bazaar overhangs create.

The walled city functions as commercial center, the bazaars that fill its streets selling textiles, jewelry, and handicrafts that Rajasthan produces. The Johari Bazaar for gems, the Tripolia Bazaar for brasswork, the Bapu Bazaar for textiles and souvenirs - each street specializes, the organization that planned cities enable persisting three centuries later. The pink walls frame commerce that continues regardless of the tourists who photograph it.

Amber Fort rises on a hill 11 kilometers from Jaipur, the earlier capital that Sawai Jai Singh II abandoned when he built his new city. The fort's construction began in 1592 and continued for over a century, the Rajput and Mughal styles mixing as different rulers added to what their predecessors built. The Sheesh Mahal, the Hall of Mirrors, reflects candlelight into constellations; the private apartments balance defensive necessity with domestic comfort.

The approach to Amber by elephant has been a tourism tradition, the decorated elephants carrying visitors up the hill that cars and jeeps now also climb. The animal welfare concerns that elephant tourism raises have led to restrictions; the elephants that still operate work under rules that advocates consider insufficient and industry considers onerous. Amber Fort is magnificent regardless of how visitors reach it, the architecture justifying the journey that commerce complicates.

The Hawa Mahal - the Palace of Winds - is Jaipur's most photographed structure, its pink facade punctuated by 953 small windows that allowed royal women to observe street life without being seen. The building is essentially a facade, its five stories shallow behind the screen that faces the bazaar below. The design served purdah requirements that kept women secluded while satisfying their curiosity about the world they could not enter.

The Hawa Mahal is less impressive from inside than out, the rooms behind the facade small and functional rather than grand. The view from the top reaches across the old city to the surrounding forts; the breeze that the many windows capture justifies the Palace of Winds name. The building has become symbol of Jaipur itself, the facade that represents the city on postcards and tourism materials, the image that draws visitors to see what they have already seen in photographs.

The Jantar Mantar is an astronomical observation site built by Sawai Jai Singh II in 1734, the largest and best-preserved of the five observatories he constructed across North India. The instruments - massive masonry structures including the world's largest stone sundial - measured time and tracked celestial bodies with precision that European instruments of the era could not match. The observatory is UNESCO World Heritage Site, the scientific achievement of a ruler more famous for his city planning.

The instruments are difficult for non-astronomers to understand, the guides who explain them making sense of what otherwise appears abstract sculpture. The sundial accurate to two seconds, the devices that tracked stars and predicted eclipses, the mathematics that underlay construction - these represent Indian scientific tradition that colonial education would later suppress. The Jantar Mantar is monument to what Indian courts achieved while Europe was discovering what India already knew.

Jaipur is India's craft capital, the workshops that produce block-printed textiles, cut gems, lacquerwork, and blue pottery concentrated here by tradition and tourism demand. The craft production is not museum performance but ongoing industry, the artisans whose skills descend through generations producing goods for both export and local markets. The visitors who watch demonstration workshops see genuine craft practiced at speed that practice enables.

The gem trade that Jaipur dominates processes most of the world's emeralds, the cutting and polishing industry employing thousands in small workshops throughout the city. The blue pottery unique to Jaipur, the Sanganeri block prints that decorate fabric, the lac bangles that women wear - these represent craft traditions that tourism has preserved by providing market. The crafts are Jaipur's living heritage, the skills that machines cannot replicate continued because demand sustains them.