Jai Vilas Palace is Gwalior's great contrast to the fort. Where the ridge is sandstone, medieval and martial, this 19th-century Scindia palace is all chandeliers, banquet halls, silver furniture and European display. Parts of the palace remain associated with the royal family; the museum sections show the princely-state world at its most theatrical.
It is easy to be sniffy about the excess, but that would miss the point. Jai Vilas explains Gwalior's later history as much as the fort explains its earlier one, and the collections are a useful reminder that central India was shaped by Maratha power, British alliances and princely ambition.