The site was a bit of a challenging visit, mostly because of the palace. A significant portion of the front area was under renovation, which made navigating the entrance quite confusing. There was no clear signage and at the ticket purchase point someone dressed as Spiderman along with a local tried directing us to an alternative entrance, it all felt a bit like a fever dream. We did manage to get the right tickets in the end.

Once inside the palace grounds, we saw the main pavilions at the back and the museum. But as Frédéric M mentions the lack of info made it difficult to understand the relevance of the things on display. Similarly as we left the palace grounds there were lots of people offering to take visitors to batik workshops, which seemed to be quite a common thing all over Yogya. We got taken to one from someone hanging around in a 7 Eleven at one point.

We also went to the Taman Sari Water Castle. As others have said, this was a lot better than the palace. Nothing spectacular, but it was nice to wander around and get a bit lost in the grounds and its surrounding streets/pathways.

As for the site itself, you really don’t need more than a few hours to see the Kraton area and it’s quite underwhelming. But all in all Yogyakarta is a fascinating city and worth a couple of days. I can’t quite explain why that is very well; there really isn’t a lot of stuff to do and it’s not that pretty either, but I have fond memories of the food and the really friendly people, both travellers and locals, the latter often being really surprised to see foreign visitors which was always entertaining. The proximity to Prambanan and Borobudur is also a big plus. Having gone to Yogya straight after Bali and all its tourist traps was a welcome change.