Falaknuma Palace

Falaknuma Palace stands on a hilltop at Engine Bowli in Falaknuma, south of the Musi River in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was built between 1893 and 1894 for Nawab Vikar-ul-Umra, the prime minister of Hyderabad State and a member of the Paigah nobility, to a design attributed to the English architect William Ward Marrett. The name is often translated as mirror of the sky. Vikar-ul-Umra presented the palace to Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, the sixth Nizam, who is said to have admired it, and the Nizam used it as a guest palace for visiting royalty and dignitaries, including British viceroys and foreign heads of state, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its architecture is a showpiece of European taste in a Deccan setting, with Italian and Tudor elements, a facade of Italian marble, and a plan shaped like a scorpion, which was the family's emblem. The interior is lavishly furnished with Venetian glass, Belgian chandeliers, carved rosewood and imported furniture. Notable spaces include the Grand Dining Hall, which seats around a hundred guests at one of the world's longest dining tables, the Durbar Hall, the library with its collection of rare books, and a music room. After the Nizam era the palace fell into disrepair, and the seventh Nizam's family later leased it to the Taj Group, which undertook a decade-long restoration completed in 2010, repairing the structure, restoring the frescoes and reproducing lost furnishings. The palace now operates as a heritage hotel, so it is not a museum in the usual sense. Public access is mainly through prior-reservation heritage walks and dining, with guided tours explaining the rooms, artefacts and the Nizam's collections. Entry requires advance booking and identification, and the walk lasts around an hour to ninety minutes.