FIT FOR KINGS

A weekend trip to the Taj Usha Kiran palace in Gwalior is one plush ride.

- Meraj Shah

THE CAR

The Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0 TSI is an exercise in understatement. Clean lines, a timeless design, luxurious but not ritzy, powered by a 188 bhp petrol motor, and superlatively high levels of occupant safety make it quite unique in its segment. This is a car that'll age very well.

Cost: ₹35 lakh ++ onward; www.volkswagen.co.in)

"In Lisbon, people go to see the city's historic trams... I wonder why they shut this one down..." she says. "Too much traffic maam," responds our guide, "And it was very slow, even pedestrians would walk faster," he adds. While it's valid for visitors like us to lament the loss of what we see as heritage (the railway ran from 18992020), the people of Gwalior probably feel very differently. You can't blame them: what's a 124 year-old tram when you've got a surfeit of temples, forts and sundry relics that date back all the way to the 7th century. And this, the winter capital of the erstwhile princely state of Gwalior, has those in spades.

We tend to use the term, 'treated like royalty, rather loosely these days. It's only when you check in to the palatial (literally) Taj Usha Kiran Palace-the erstwhile royal guesthouse which was constructed specially for the visit and stay of the Prince of Wales in 1902-do you get a glimpse into the extraordinary things a royal could take for granted at the turn of the last century.