Queen of the Deccan

he private Pune city tour begins at Shaniwarwada, the great fortified palace that was the seat of the Peshwas, the Prime Ministers of the Maratha Empire, from 1732 until the British dismantled their power nearly a century later. What stands today is a fragment of what it was — most of the original palace burned in a fire in 1828 — but your guide brings the missing parts back to life, telling the story of the dynasty that built the most powerful empire in India since the Mughals, and the extraordinary men who ran it from these walls. From Shaniwarwada the tour moves to Dagdu Sheth Halwai Ganpati Temple, one of the most revered Ganesh temples in Maharashtra, built by a sweet-maker who lost his son to plague and channelled his grief into devotion. The temple's story is as moving as its architecture, and your guide tells both. Then to Lal Mahal, the Red Palace where Shivaji Maharaj spent his childhood and where his famous encounter with the Mughal general Shaista Khan took place in the dead of night. The Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum is one of the most underrated museums in India, a three-storey treasure house of 20,000 objects collected by a man obsessed with preserving the everyday material culture of Maharashtra: musical instruments, lamps, hookahs, kitchen utensils, weapons, and textiles that together paint a richer picture of Indian life than most history books manage. Your guide knows which objects to linger at and what stories they carry. Lunch is a traditional Maharashtrian meal at a local restaurant your guide trusts, an opportunity to try the food Pune is famous for — the food that fuelled an empire. The afternoon takes you to Aga Khan Palace, one of the most poignant sites in Maharashtra. Built in 1892 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III as an act of charity for the famine-affected people of the region, it became the place where Mahatma Gandhi and his wife Kasturba were imprisoned by the British in 1942. Kasturba died here. Her samadhi stands in the garden. The palace is simultaneously beautiful and deeply moving, and no guide in Pune tells its story better than ours. The Pune sightseeing tour concludes with the Darshan Museum, a multimedia museum on the life and teachings of Sadhu Vaswani, one of Maharashtra's most beloved spiritual figures. This private Pune city tour is fully inclusive. We take care of hotel pick-up and drop in a private air-conditioned vehicle, your English-speaking cultural guide throughout the day, all entry fees, a traditional Maharashtrian lunch and all taxes.