The Summer Palace of Maharaja Ranjit Singh is located north of Amritsar and we went to visit it during our stay in Amritsar. The palace is now has a museum with a wide collection of paintings, weapons, coins, manuscripts and artifacts. The palace is closed for public on Mondays. It is open to the public from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm on all other days except Saturdays and Sundays. During these two days it is open from 10.00 am to 9.00 pm. It is a double storey structure and is surrounded by a beautiful garden called Ram Bagh. The garden was given the name by the Maharaja himself, as a tribute to Guru Ram Das, who was a famous Sikh guru.
As I reached the palace, I saw that it was surrounded by a high wall and there is a moat filled with water surrounding the wall. You have to cross it to enter the palace. The entrance to the palace called Darshani Deorhi is very beautiful and exclusively designed. It consisted of four towers in the four corners of the garden and each one is double storeyd. It had two tanks, one of which supplied water to the palace and the fountains in the garden and the other was connected to the air conditioners in the palace. Inside the park I could see many beautiful plants and flowers that I have never seen before. They are well kept and maintained by the gardeners and looked lovely with flowers and fountains. I took a few photographs of the garden and the palace.
The interior of the palace was richly decorated and reflected the royal splendor of the Maharajas. Maharaja Rnjit Singh was known as the Lion of Punjab and was a brave and valiant ruler. He built the summer palace to stay when he visited the city of Amritsar. The museum in the palace had a collection of oil paintings, glass paintings and water paintings. It also contained a replica of the Kohinoor diamond. We also saw many weapons used in those days, manuscripts and armors. The visit to the palace taught us a lot about the history of Punjab.