Nazarbaug Palace
Nazarbaug Palace or Nazar Bāgh Palace was the Gaekwad's royal palace in the city of Vadodara, Gujarat state, western India. Located in the heart of the city, the palace was built by Malhar Rao Gaekwad in 1871. Considered to be the oldest palace in Baroda, in its later years it…
Nazar Baug Palace, the gaudy relic of Malhar Rao’s 1871 ambition, sits in a cramped traffic island on Mahatma Gandhi Road and is the only excuse to step inside Vadodara’s pretentious royal past; the marble façade is impressive only until you realise the interior is a dimly lit treasury‑turned‑ceremonial hall, where the original chandeliers compete with the stale smell of bureaucratic storage. The best time to visit is early on a weekday, when the guard change at 10 am draws a thin crowd and you can linger over the throne room without being shunted by school groups. Skip the overpriced guide who will spend ten minutes recounting the Gaekwad coronations – the plaque on the lobby gives you everything you need. Stay at the Heritage House B&B on Alkapuri for a short walk; the neighbourhood’s cafés serve decent dhokla and chai, a far more rewarding palate than the palace’s cafeteria, which offers only vanilla‑scented tea and over‑cooked paneer tikka. Two hours is honest; add an hour for the adjacent Nazar Bagh garden, where the former royal fence now frames a tired flea market. Avoid the monsoon months of July–September – the garden turns to mud and the palace’s verandas become leaky, turning what could be a brief, dignified stop into a damp disappointment.
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