Bikaner, Rajasthan, India

Buried deep in the tangle of narrow lanes at the heart of Bikaner’s old walled city, Bhanwar Niwas is one of Rajasthan’s quirkier heritage hotels. The building was commissioned in 1927 by the Rampuria family of bankers who made their fortune financing the wars of the local ruling dynasty.

An idiosyncratic blend of Indian and European taste dominates the architecture. While the exterior’s richly carved jharokha balconies and intricate pierced-stone jali panels are unmistakably Rajput, some of the interiors wouldn’t look out of place in a fin-de-siècle Parisian townhouse. The rooms are vast and full of old-world accents: Belgian tiles on the floors, hand-painted wallpaper and carved teak beds.

Our opinion

A charming hotel full of local character in the heart of Bikaner.