We started our day by travelling from Pune airport to Mahabaleshwar via airport transfer booked with MMT, while the distance is just 120kms between 2 locations, it took over 4 hours 30 minutes to reach due to road conjunction and since i travelled during Christmas holidays, there were a lot of tourists visiting Mahabaleshwar.
Tip 1 - ensure you book your airport transfer in advance as the cab fare could be expensive if arranged at last minute.
We hadn't set out an itinerary so next morning we reached out to local travel agencies and planned a day out sightseeing in Mahabaleshwar. Our first stop was to the temple of Mahabaleshwar, learning the story behind Mahabaleshwar temple was amazing. It's an interesting story, do pay attention to the story board while queueing for Darshan. And another interesting temple was the panchganga temple where 5 rivers - Venna, koyna, savitri, gayatri and krishna. The water was amazingly sweet and noticed a lot of tourists filling various bottles with it.
Mahabaleshwar is famous for some amazing view points - Elephant point or needle eye point, Arthur seat, tiger springs point, echo point etc.
Traffic in the routes caused bit of a fuss through out our day. While enjoying the view on top of the cliff enjoyed some amazing strawberry icecream, this was a unique icecream experience and also quite popular amongst tourists, he even had photo displayed with various celebrities visiting him. Definitely, something to try if you love icecream and strawberries. Mahabaleshwar also is home to strawberry farming and you can buy fresh strawberries from local farmers across & enroute the tourists spots. We wanted to visit the Venna lake but when we got there it was too dark to see anything so missed an opportunity to visit Venna lake.
Tour - Pratapgarh fort and tapola visit.
I am bit of historic trivia buff when it comes to learning about story behind the place visited hence hired a guide ( I highly recommend this,do take a guide), you will be amazed the skills, tremendous warfare tactics and foresighted warrior King Shivaji was and how well planned and strategic fort it was. Felt extremely proud to be an Indian and about the legacies our kings have left behind, truly inspirational. I could explain the full story but it would be a spoiler so refraining myself from giving you the details, definitely recommend visiting and learning the story of Pratapgarh fort.
Was a challenging climb (approx 350-400 steps) to get to the top, not recommended to senior travellers, my Mum struggled the climb and had to discontinue mid way, however she made it bhavani temple which is approx 200 steps.
Post Pratapgarh fort, we visited a nice Maharashtrian hotel and had a yummy lunch and visited tapola. We opted to do a motor boat ride and enjoyed the view of beautiful koyna river, the boat takes to a small island where you are left alone for a few minutes where we enjoyed the view & clicked few pictures
On our way back we stopped at a small carnival near Venna lake where my nephew enjoyed some fun rides and games. It was like a chawpati where you can enjoy some street food.
Travel back to Pune airport from Mahabaleshwar - while i had booked airport transfer in advance, the vendor called me last minute and cancelled the trip as a result of which i landed in a sticky situation and had to pay double fare to reach pune in time for my flight. Tip - ensure you have kept additional time apart from the time needed for the travel, because the route sometimes has unanticipated traffic and can become a hurdle. We had to skip lunch break to ensure we made it in time for the flight.
My key takeaways from this trip
1. There is some beautiful tourist spots and a little improved commute experience can help improve overall tourist experience. I went from a metro city to escape traffic and sitting duck through travel at Mahabaleshwar was a major turn off.
2. Honest realisation - There is so much beauty and landscapes in our country, untouched, pure and surreal. I enjoyed my time at all the sightseeing spots at Mahabaleshwar.
3. History of our kings and stories of their glory, excellence made me beam with pride, what a blessed land we live in, it's a shame it is now at mercy of greedy, power hungry corrupt leaders. With the right utilisation of our country's true potential we were meant to reach unimaginable heights, what a frustrating state to be in.
4. About the Stay, I stayed in a resort called 'Parkyard' while the food & staff behaviour was good and there was a special magic show organised which all the kids absolutely enjoyed, the quality of the rooms could improve, I would expect higher standard room for the price I paid. I was left with few options since i booked last minute, else quite a few hotels and resorts to choose from.
5. There is a mobile connectivity problem so good opportunity to take your focus away from phone, however can be setback if you want to communicate or research via internet to set your plan.