Journey with breakfast.

As in "1001 nights": nights in the Indian Heritage Hotels can be fabulous. Palaces, country estates, but also new houses have the owners converted to tourist accommodation - this is the character of the major hotels as luxurious comfort.

 

Delhi - The coach has the winding descent from the Himalayas done. Links are still snow-capped mountains to see it go right down into the swing plane. And here in the green hills somewhere it should be the next "Heritage Hotel". So hot in India, the castles and country houses where tourists can stay. Whether in cities or villages, noble residences or farms - the idea of the cultural heritage as a hotel use is booming.

The British tourists are curious about where they spend the next night will be. "Every house, every room is different, you learn a very different India know," says Sue Chandler from London. Pointed arches and pillars, fountains in courtyards, murals, and shaded porches - "Heritage hotels" offer a journey back in time with breakfast. "Too bad, in order to arrive late in the evening and morning again travel further," says Chandler.

This is Pragpur in the state of Himachal Pradesh on the program. The bus travels through the narrow streets of the village, and passengers ask where they are probably here to stay. It is almost always on the last mile to a "Heritage Hotel" - to be a liberated "Aahhh" through the bus goes. This time it will be the "Judge's Court" is triggered, a red house with white pillars corner towers and corridors, in the colonial times to the judge lived.

Double room in brick house

His descendant Vijay Lal decided in 1997, the estate into a hotel to turn. "At the beginning it felt a bit odd to strangers at the tables to see where my ancestors had sat. But I was more of a pleasure to have guests here," says Lal. The feeling is obviously very well sit on the balcony and read, come to dinner at the festively decorated table in the garden and can be the story of Lal tell his family.

"We are eleven generations in this village," he says, "and to me it was important that we not isolate the hotel." Therefore, he went one for "Heritage Hotels" extraordinary way. He not only rents rooms in the main house, but also directed his family homes in the middle of her village, an old brick house with two floors than doubles, for example, a few minutes walk from Market Square and with normal left and right neighbors.

"The income from tourism should benefit the village in which the Heritage Hotel is," says Lal. "We get our driver and guide from the environment, we buy the vegetables in the market here, we send our guests to the souvenir shops on the ground." But "Heritage hotels" are not charity events, but first and foremost a business, the heirs of rich patrician houses to enable the family to keep possession.

"The house was much too big for me, and it had to be renovated," says RD Singh, of Jaipur in the "Nana ki Haveli 'operates. "For us Rajput hospitality has always been very important - because my wife had the idea of an occupation to make it."

Designation "Heritage Hotels" is not protected

Similarly, the Devendra Singh. He ventured with "Roop Niwas" Shekhawati in Rajasthan in the north east in 1992 to jump from the farm as a tourist hotel. He and his neighbors offer guests something special: Safari tab on the Marwari horses with ears sharp sickle. "When we started, it was very special, but today the streets are from Delhi and Jaipur as well that Shekhawati on the tourist world has arrived," says Singh.

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Tourists, who today, after Delhi and Jaipur, the Taj Mahal and the shores of the Ganges to travel, have a choice: you can in a standard hotel stay in India look like everywhere else in the world. Or they opt for "Heritage Hotels". However, this name is not protected and does not say anything about prices and convenience. Architectural gems with plenty of charm and tradition for 50 euros per night as well as to new buildings in the old style palaces, or expensive, but also houses, just old.

India-tourists, with the "Heritage hopping" flirt, do it so well, is precisely to find out where they spend the nights. Many rely on reports from friends and acquaintances, trust in Heritage established chains like the Neemrana hotels or to book packages.

But even then they should know exactly what to expect, says Michaela Studiosus of Ted's travels: "It is in these houses live history, even closer contact with the culture of the country get. But we also prepare our guests to suggest that such Hotels are not 'square, practical, well' are. "

Rather than authentic luxury

Not every room is the same, there are narrow staircases, balcony railings have some in the German building no chance. The bathrooms with shower and western toilet are perfectly clean, but from another time. It was not just a question as to luxurious accommodation, but authentic, says Ted. This also agrees with the Indian travel agent Anita Gurnani, which is always on the lookout for new "Heritage Hotels" is: "You have to be unique, not uniform, character is more important than comfort."

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Neemrana Hotels, India

Judges Court Hotel, India

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Just then also looked Giri Singh - until they are between Jaipur and Agra was found. She bought the 'Chandra Mahal Haveli, a large landowner in the house Mughal style, which stood empty and dilapidated, and was directed to her. Now include not only India-tourists to their guests: "We have air conditioning and heating in the rooms built, now also in summer and winter people from Delhi who just want to get out of town."