Mysore Palace

Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV was eleven years old when fire destroyed the previous wooden palace in 1896, so the regent Maharani Kempananjammani Vani Vilas Sannidhana commissioned Henry Irwin's replacement while the boy king remained a minor under British Resident oversight. Irwin, who had already built the Indo-Saracenic Viceregal Lodge at Shimla, mixed Hindu, Islamic, Rajput, and Gothic elements deliberately: the arched colonnades read as Mughal, the domed corner towers as Rajput, and the iron roof trusses spanning the Durbar Hall, shipped from Glasgow, as unmistakably Victorian engineering. Construction ran from 1897 to 1912 and drew on the Mysore state treasury rather than colonial grants.

Wadiyar rule ended in 1950 when the kingdom acceded to the Indian Union, and Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar converted the palace into a public monument and the ceremonial centre of the annual Dasara festival, a role it still holds. The Mysore Palace Board, a state government body, now manages daily operations, though the royal family retains private apartments in a separate wing away from the visitor route. The palace's jewel-encrusted golden throne, dismantled and stored the rest of the year, is reassembled and displayed only during the ten-day Dasara celebrations each September or October.

Footwear comes off at the Gombe Thotti entrance before the interior circuit begins, and a staffed counter charges ₹5 per pair to mind shoes rather than leaving them on open racks. Photography and video recording are banned throughout the interior galleries, including the Durbar Hall and the golden throne pavilion; guards check phones at several points along the one-way route, and enforcement is stricter than the palace's posted signage implies.

The Jaya Maarthaanda gate on the east side is the only tourist entrance. Visitors who arrive instead at the Varaha or Balarama gates, used for staff movement and Dasara processions, are redirected on a ten-minute walk back around the outer wall. Licensed guides carry a laminated Department of Tourism card and charge ₹300–₹500 for an hour; they gather near the ticket counter rather than working the queue itself, and unlicensed touts offering to “skip the line” outside the outer wall should be ignored.

Sunday evening is the only regular chance to see the palace lit by its full complement of bulbs outside the Dasara season, and the exterior floodlighting is visible free of charge from Old Fort Road, no ticket required. Booking online through the palace's own portal avoids the counter queue, which regularly runs past 40 minutes between 10:30 and 13:00 once coach groups arrive.

Jaganmohan Palace stands 700 metres north along Sayyaji Rao Road, and Devaraja Market is a further ten-minute walk beyond it, making a single walkable morning circuit of palace, gallery, and market. During the Dasara festival in September or October, ticketed hours and the route of the jumbo savari elephant procession both change with little public notice, so check the palace's official portal in the preceding week rather than a travel agent's printed schedule.