India Guide
Gujarat
Bhadra
The solid fortified citadel, Bhadra, built of deep red stone in 1411 as Ahmedabad's first Muslim structure, is relatively plain in comparison to the later mosques. The palace inside is now occupied by offices and its courtyard packed with typists and advocates who use it like an open-air office. Most of the building is off-limits, but you can climb to its roof via a winding staircase just inside the main gateway and survey the streets below from behind its weathered bastions.
In front of the citadel is Alif Shah's Mosque, gaily painted in green and white. Further east, beyond the odoriferous meat market in Khas Bazaar, is Teen Darwaja, a thick-set triple gateway built during Ahmed Shah's reign that once led to the outer court of the royal citadel. A trio of pointed arches engraved with Islamic inscriptions and detailed carving spans the busy road below and shelters cobblers and peddlers.
A prominent feature on the front of glossy city brochures, Sidi Sayyid's Mosque (1573), famed for the ten magnificent jali (lattice-work) screens lining its upper walls, sits in the centre of a busy traffic circle to the east of Nehru Bridge.