Bangalore Palace

The Wodeyars of Mysore ruled this area of India from about 1399. In Bangalore, they had a summer palace. The palace is still owned by the current King of Mysore, although the title is only a formality. The other palace, in Mysore itself, is now owned by the state, and is pretty spectular. You can read more about the Wodeyars here: http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/deccan/wodeyars.htm

The palace is pretty funky. It has fallen into disrepair, and they are doing a lot of renovation on it. They have the funding pretty well figured out--for Indians, INR 100. For tourists, INR 200. If you want to take pictures, it's INR 500. Smoooooooooth.

Blogger will only let me put 5 photos to a post, so I'll break these up into a few posts. I think I read that the palace was based on Windsor castle. It's pretty impressive, even where it's not completely fixed up. Near as we could tell, it was probably last used as a residence regularly around the 30's or 40's--there was a lot of furniture of that era in the Queen's Residence and the King's residence.

The outside of the palace:


Some of the Kings of Mysore:


This is the great receiving hall, and one of the few pictures from this trip that I'm actually in, so I included it here. This is where the people came to see the King, and the little structure behind me is where the Queen sat. The King received people while sitting on a golden throne. It's not still there though... =)


This is the King's courtyard.
This is the Queen's courtyard.