Patan

Patan was, for centuries, the beating heart of Gujarat. As Anhilwad Patan it served as capital under the Chavda and then the Chaulukya (Solanki) dynasties from around the eighth century, a city of temples, tanks, and trade before its power waned and Ahmedabad rose. What survives from that age is extraordinary, above all a stepwell that ranks among the finest structures India has ever built.

Rani ki Vav, the Queen's Stepwell, was commissioned in the eleventh century by Queen Udayamati in memory of her husband, King Bhima I. Conceived as an inverted underground temple, it descends seven storeys through galleries carved with more than five hundred major sculptures and over a thousand minor ones, many of Vishnu in his ten avatars. Silted over for centuries and excavated in the twentieth, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014 and now appears on the ₹100 note. Nearby lie the ruins of the vast Sahastralinga Talav, another Solanki water monument.

Patan's living heritage is just as remarkable: it is the home of Patola, the double-ikat silk in which both warp and weft are tie-dyed before weaving, so that a single saree can take months and is made by only a handful of families. MyTripMyTravel arranges the stepwell with a proper guide, visits to a working Patola loom and heritage museum, and pairs Patan with the Modhera Sun Temple on a Solanki-heritage day from Ahmedabad.