Mehrangarh Castle India

Legendary

Built around 1459, it's one of the largest forts in India.

Photo by Güidem Üstün

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Legend says this fort is cursed. When Rao Jodha chose the hill in 1459, a hermit called the Lord of Birds was already living there, and he wasn't happy about being moved.

He put a curse on the new fort: it would always run short of water. People in Jodhpur still point to the droughts that hit every few years.

Curse or not, the fort got built. It sits on a sandstone cliff 410 feet above the city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India, and its name means "Fort of the Sun."

Rao Jodha was a Rajput ruler who needed a capital he could defend. He moved his people from a nearby town, started the fort, and named the new city Jodhpur after himself.

Most of what stands today was built later, in the 1600s. The walls rise up to 120 feet and are as much as 70 feet thick.

To get inside, you pass through seven gates, one after another. Each was built at a different time, and each tells a story.

The second gate still shows dents left by cannonballs. An army from Jaipur fired them during an attack, and nobody ever filled the holes in.

The last gate before the palaces is called Jai Pol, the Gate of Victory. A ruler named Man Singh built it in 1806 after beating the armies of Jaipur and Bikaner.

Inside are palaces covered in carved sandstone. The Phool Mahal, or Flower Palace, was built for parties, and the Sheesh Mahal is lined with hundreds of tiny mirrors.

The fort still belongs to the royal family of Jodhpur, though nobody lives there now. Film crews love it, and it appears in The Dark Knight Rises, where Batman climbs out of a prison pit with the fort in the background.

Walk up through all seven gates and count the cannonball marks on the second one. Visit the museum to see royal palanquins, painted elephant seats, and old weapons. Then look out from the ramparts over the city, where hundreds of houses are painted blue.