Chand Baori

A stepwell at Abhaneri, east of Jaipur on the road towards Agra, and one of the deepest and most geometrically startling in India. Three walls descend in a criss-cross of narrow flights to the water at the bottom; the fourth carries a colonnaded pavilion and the remains of carved panels. It was built as infrastructure rather than as architecture — a way of reaching groundwater through a Rajasthani summer, and of keeping the water cool and shaded once you got there — which is what makes the precision of it so disproportionate and so worth the detour. It is usually paired with Bhandarej or Abhaneri's Harshat Mata temple next door, and it takes far less time than the drive out, so most people fold it into a longer day between Jaipur and Agra rather than making it the whole trip.

Visiting

Entry fee and daily timings weren't available from an official source — please confirm on site.