Trip to Hampi..
Since childhood I had been hearing about Vijaynagar, the Empire of Emperor Krishnadevraya, since then I had strong desire to visit this place but never got an opportunity.
I was waiting for an perfect opportunity and when there was relief in Lockdown for Travelling I felt it was risky but the Golden opportunity, because of less number of Tourists. So we didn't miss this opportunity and immediately planned a 7 days road trip to Hampi.
Surrounding Hampi there are many places nearby which are included in given schedule.
Our schedule given below
Day 1 - Travelling to Badami by Car
Day 2 - Explore Badami
Day 3 - Explore Aihole & Pattadakal
Day 4 & 5 - Explore Hampi
Day 6 - Explore Chitradurga
Day 7 - Back to Pune.
Day 1
We left Pune in Morning and decided to reach Badami via Solapur, before reaching Badami we visited Almatti.
Almatti is a small place with beautiful Gardens and dam, we just visited dam, had some clicks and reached Badami in evening.
After a long road journey, time was to explore Badami.
Day 2
Badami is Very beautiful and less known place.
It should be in bucket list of every traveller.
We got up early, had our breakfast and left to Explore Badami.
During our visit we explored below things
Entry Charges 20rs/Person
1) Cave 1 to 4
Cave 1 to Lord Shiva
Cave 2 to Lord Vishnu
Cave 3 to Lord Shiva and Vishnu
Cave 4 to Lord Mahavira
2) Agastya Lake
3) Archeological Museum
4) Mallikarjuna temple
After descending the caves and on the circumference of Agastya lake, you will see Mallikarjuna temple.
5) Bhootnath temple
At the End of Lake and below Mountain is the beautiful Bhootnath temple.
6) Badami Fort
In between Bhootnath temple and Mallikarjuna temple, there is a way which takes you to Badami Fort, the fort is quite beautiful, not much climbing, 1hr sufficient to explore the fort.
7) Upper Shivalaya and Lower Shivalaya
The 2 temples situated on Badami Fort, you will come across them while exploring Badami Fort
8) Banashankri temple
At a distance of 5 Kms from Badami, Banashankari Temple is located at Cholachagudda. Dedicated to Banashankari Devi, an incarnation of Goddess Parvati, it's one of the famous temples in the district.
It's Shakti peeth and you will find many devotees all time.
If you get up early as we did then all above places can we covered in a single day.
Day 3
Pattadakal & Aihole
Aihole and Pattadakal are small places but consists of one of the most beautiful temples in the world.
Pattadakal is marked as World Heritage site for the temples and beautiful carvings.
Theses places are just 25 km from Badami and 1 day sufficient to visit
In Pattadakal the places visited given below
1) Virupaksha temple
2) Kashi Vishwanath temple
3) Jain temple
4) Sangmeshwara Temple
5) Papanatha temple
6) Galaganatha temple
7) Mallikarjuna temple
The all above places are nearby and 2hrs sufficient to explore.
From here we reached Aihole.
Aihole is also a small place with marvelous temples.
As per discussion with villagers came to know there are 125 old temple for which you will need min 3 to 4 days.
But we decided to do only famous places which given below
1) Durga temple
2) Ladkhan temple
3) Ravanapahadi cave temple
4) Archaeological meseum
5) Gowda temple
6) Konti Gudi temples
7) Chikkigudi group
8) Rachi Gudi group.
These all temples are scattered all around Aihole, but the Major temples are covered in a gated community.
It takes around 2 to 3 hrs to cover above places
Aihole to Hampi - Around 120 km, so we planned to cover this journey in evening. We left Aihole @ around 6.30pm reached hampi @ around 9pm.
We reached directly to Mango tree resturant.
We had read much about it and it was as per expectations, the ambience of Hotel and Food Quality was excellent.
We had booked our room in Banana farm house.
The place is around 2km from Hampi.
We were tired, so immediately got fresh and went to sleep.
Day 4
Explore Hampi
We got up early, had delicious breakfast in Banana farm house and left to Explore Hampi
There are many places to check in Hampi, but As we had reserved 2 days to Explore Hampi, we covered below Monuments
Hampi Day 1
We started our day from
1) Coracle ride - It's the beautiful circular boat, cost depends on your ride.
2) Rishyamukha Mountain - It's just besides Coracle ride, it's the place where Lord Hanuman and Lord Rama met for the first time.
3) Vithala Temple - It's just 1km from Coracle ride, we covered it by walking as you cannot take your vehicle by this road.
On the way we came across many temples, Monuments.
4) In the evening we came across Hampi bazar &
5) Monolith Nandi.
6) From here the road goes to Achyutraya temple
7) Virupaksha temple, the Main monument in Hampi
8) Hemakuta hill temple - It's just besides the entrance of Virupaksha temple
9) Ghat of River Tungbhadra which is at the end of Virupaksha temple
Day 5
Day 2 - Hampi
1) Early morning we started with Trek to Matanga hill.
During descending we came down by 2nd route and lost in Banana farms, there we met a farmer and he showed us the way which took us onn the tar road and we felt sigh of relief.
2) Lakshmi Narasimha temple, besides Narasimha is the big Shivling
3) Sasivekalu Ganesha
All above are around Virupaksha temple.
4) Later we left towards Mahanavmi Dibba, it's the place from where Kings used to rule the Vijaynagar Empire.
In this surroundings we came across below places
5) Zenana Enclosure
6) Elephant stable
7) Lotus Palace
8) Queens bath
9) we ended our day at Ramanatha temple
Later we had our early dinner in the place we stayed/Banana Farm house.
The place is really clean and good Quality food.
Here you get all needs, but need to ask if it's complimentary in booking price or need to pay extra
Day 6
Chitradurga Fort
Got up early morning had breakfast and left to Chitradurga which is around 150km from Hampi.
The road was as smooth as butter, we reached within flick of eyes.
The fort is huge around 2500 acre, to visit all parts of fort you need min 2 days, but we decided only to visit the main places, stay in Chitradurga and leave to Pune early morning.
We did the same as told above and reached Pune 641km in 10 hrs.
Road was awesome so journey was fine.
