The Chowmahalla palace of Hyderabad

Hyderabad, the city of Nizams have a great history associated with it. There are a lot of heritage places in Hyderabad and Chowmahalla palace is one of them. This palace was the seat of the Asaf Jahi dynasty. “Chow” means four and “mahalla” means palace. So, there are four palaces. As of now, one palace is open for the exhibition which used to be darbar of Nizam. Chowmahalla palace is one of the must-visit place if you are in Hyderabad. This palace is very near to char minar. So, you can plan a combined visit to char minar and chowmahalla palace.

Chowmahalla palace Timings

The visit timings for the Chowmahalla palace is between 10 AM to 5 PM. One thing to note is that the palace is closed on Friday.

Chowmahalla palace Entry Fee

The Entry Fee for visiting the chowmahalla palace is ₹50 for Indian citizens and ₹200 for foreign visitors. Remember to get a separate ₹50 ticket for your camera as well.

Parking at Chowmahalla palace

Paid Parking is available outside the entrance gate of the chowmahalla palace for ₹10.

I went to visit the palace last month and want to share my experience. Tickets are available at the main gate. Don’t forget to take tickets for your camera too. After entering the main gate we first come across the servant quarters on the left and a fountain on the right. and somewhere behind the trees, we can see the Nizam’s darbar hall

servant quarters – chowmahalla palace

After having peeked into the servant quarters I moved towards the fountain. The fountain installed in
between a large water tank and provides a good spot for clicking some pictures. Next, we move to the darbar of nizam. As told by the people there, this used to be the darbar of the nizam. On the first look, it doesn’t look well maintained. As told, the Nizam entertained their official guests and royal visitors here.

chowmahalla palace

On the right, we see the clock tower, and surprisingly the clock was showing the correct time and according to a few articles, I learned that its been running for over 200 years now. Now it was time to enter the darbar. As we enter the darbar, we see large chandeliers hanging from the roof and the Nizam’s seat below those magnificent chandeliers. The pillars and the roof ceiling have really good artwork on them. We can see the old pictures of the royal family in the exhibition room on the ground floor. The palace was awarded the prestigious UNESCO Asia Pacific Merit award for cultural heritage conservation. The exhibition room has several paintings and pictures from Nizam’s era. A good amount of information is written about each of the pictures. Its good to see the documentation, one gathers a good amount of information about the nizam’s life.

As we move across the room, we experience a beautiful artwork done on the ceiling, windows, and doors and a good lighting arrangement which gives a really good view. Having looked at the pictures of the royal family, we climbed the stairs to the first floor. The first floor provides a great view of the darbar hall and the nizam’s seat. We can closely see the carvings being done on the walls.

Darbar Hall – chowmahalla palace

On the first floor. We first see a hall whose walls are full of paintings from the Nizam’s era and again we good amount of information provided with each of the painting. From the hall, we get a very good view of the royal balcony

Balcony View – Chowmahalla Palace

In other rooms on the first floor, we can find different things about the royal family on display. We can see various kinds of items such as tables, chairs, crockery, clothing items, and other things that they used in day to day life.

Then we climb down to the ground floor, where we find the armory on display. We get to see different kinds of weapons along with the information about them. The armory exhibition has some really good things to see. Below you can see a variety of small and big swords on display. There are a variety of guns too. We can see various types of rifles and revolvers. I’ve only seen a 2 barrel revolver, but for the first time, I saw a four-barrel revolver. Below is a four-barrel revolver.

Four barrel revolver

After exiting from the room we enter into the royal balcony. The balcony is really beautiful. The balcony has a few iron cupboards. My friend told me that these are fireproof cupboards. Yes, these iron cupboards are fireproof and they have a patent for that. One could hardly notice this in the first look. But, upon looking closely you can see a stamp on the cupboard, stating that its fireproof. Then exiting from this gallery you enter the backyard of the darbar. It’s lush green, with trees at the boundary and the garden with green grass in between. It’s a good place to sit and relax.

Backyard view of chowmahalla palace

Then there is another gate at the corner of the backyard that leads to the other three palaces which now have a car collection on display. Well, I missed the car collection as I was not feeling well. But, I’ve heard that the car collection have a good number of cars on display and also contains a Rolls Royce.

Overall the experience was really good. But I really hope they take up some maintenance of the complete property.