Bangalore: Life beyond Malls..

This one dedicated to some friends who say "There is nothing in Bangalore except malls"...
One small attempt to project Bangalore as a place known for landmarks apart from malls, multiplexes, pubs and IT companies.
This blog contains a compilation of places which can be visited in leisure and all the places are well within Bangalore. 

1) Bangalore Palace: One of my favourite places. Modelled on Windsor Castle in England, this place is the trademark of Bangalore. The entrance to the palace itself makes us feel like entering a European style Garden. Sometimes reminds me of the Marlinspike Hall in Tintin comic books. The railway line connecting Bangalore City and Bangalore Cantonment railway stations is visible from the entrance gates. The palace was built for the Maharaja of Mysore in the 18th century. Lot of movies have been shot in this palace premises. The creepers around the pillars gives it a classical look. The interiors are equally beautiful with paintings and furnitures.

   
2) Kempegowda Towers: Bangalore was founded by Kempegowda in the 15th century. He marked the four boundaries of the erstwhile Bangalore by installing towers each at Ulsoor in the east, near Kempambudhi Lake in the west, near Mekhri Circle in the north, and in Lalbagh in the south. Its nice to locate all 4 towers and capture it in pictures. I leave it to the readers to locate the exact point and explore the places.

  
3) Kalasipalayam/KR Market: KR Market is one of the oldest markets in Bangalore. One can find vendors from all across the district selling fruits, vegetables and other stuff. The Jumma Masjid just adjacent to KR Market is a marvellous monument built in exquisite Islamic architecture. This is hardly noticed because the traffic and the chaos takes away all the attention away from this monument. Tipu Sultan's fort is on the southern side of KR Market which is maintained by the archaeological department and the summer palace is just half a km from the fort. The fort has a giant door and has some carvings which are nice to see. The Palace also has nice woodwork and a small museum is also set  up inside. An old Ganesha temple is also present inside the fort area.

  
  
4) Jayamahal Palace: This is now a hotel situated near Bangalore Cantt railway station was once served as a summer capital of the Gondal royal family. Built by the Britishers, this is built as a mix of Indian and Gothic architecture. As this is a restaurant also, visitors can admire the beauty of this structure while having delicious food.

  
5) Shivajinagar/Bangalore Cantonment: The old headquarters of the Bangalore Cantonment area. Lot of old British style houses can be seen around Shivajinagar which gives a glimpse of British Bangalore. A walk around the Cantonment areas like Cox Town, Frazer Town, Richards Town gives a great feeling to the old timers. St Mary's Basilica is one of the oldest churches in the area and beautifully stands near the busy Shivajinagar area. Shivajinagar is well known due to its proximity to Business and shopping areas like MG Road and Brigade road.

    
6) Malleshwaram and Basavanagudi(Malgudi): Two of the oldest areas of Bangalore and also inspired RK Narayanan to name the ficticious place 'Malgudi' in his book Malgudi Days. Malleshwaram has some old temples like Kadu Mallikarjuna Swamy which is around a 1000 years old. Also an ancient site was excavated where an old temple was discovered. This temple is named Nandi Teertha wherein water will be gushing out of Nandi bull continously and is believed to have medicinal value. The source of this water is not known. Basavanagudi has some ancient temples like Gavi Gangadheeshwara which is a cave temple and the famous Bull Temple. Basavanagudi is also popular for the annual 'Kadalekai Parishe' or groundnut fair when farmers from across the state and the neighbouring state come here every year and offer their annual harvest of groundnut as offering to Lord Basava. The Bugle Rock formation near the Bull Temple is known to be 3000 million years old. Vidyarthi Bhavan is another popular landmark in Gandhi Bazar which is popular for masala dosas since many decades.

     
7) Begur: The ancient temple of Naganathaswamy or Panchalingeshwara may not be well known to even many old timers but records suggest that this might be the oldest temple in Bangalore based on the inscriptions found by the archaeological survey of India. It was built by the Cholas and maintains the same style and look of the temples belonging to that era.

    
8) Mavalli (Lalbagh road): This area which is now dusty and bustling with traffic is home to the well known MTR restaurant. MTR or Mavalli Tiffin Rooms is another success story from Bangalore which has earned reputation across the globe for its pickles and ready to eat food.

    
9) Ulsoor/Halasooru: This is also one of the oldest areas of Bangalore Cantonment and also the area of the Cholas. The Someshwara temple in Ulsoor was built by the Cholas and the carvings can well tell us about the craftwork of the Cholas. Apart from this there are several other temples in this area and the Ulsoor Lake, Kempegowda tower and the Gurudwara are prominent landmarks of Ulsoor.

  
10) VV Puram: This area boasts of the 'Chaat Street' or 'food street' where one can experience several kinds of chat items across the street. This is quite a sight in the evenings when people of all ages throng this place to please their taste buds.

  
11) Some Ancient temples: In the midst of modern society we find some ancient temples in Bangalore. One is the 12th Century Chokkanatheshwara temple in Domlur, around 1000 yr old Someshwara temple in Old Madivala built by the Cholas and Vasantha Vallabharayaswamy temple in Vasanthapura where rishi Mandavya once meditated.

    
12) Other prominent landmarks: Landmarks like Cubbon Park, Vidhana Soudha, Attara Kacheri, Lalbagh, Town Hall are well known and can be found in any article on Bangalore tourism so I will not elaborate.

            

Comments

  1. Superb collection of places to be visited in bangalore . Great Work

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  2. Great job in collecting details. My website http://www.bangaloredaytrips.com is dedicated for this purpose. I'd be happy to feature these pictures over there too, if you give permission.

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  3. I am not sure if the clarity of the pictures will be intact if you download it from this website. Let me know youe email address, I will upload the images to Picasa share the link with you.

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  4. really nice collection beyond the bangalore malls.
    keep posting....

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  5. good collection of places beyond the malls....one can keep adding to it....

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. thanks would like to know where exactly is this panchalingeshvara temple located

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  10. This a very good information for me, because I am trying to find number of sites , but knowing the real Data in ur Blog about towers. Ur blog is good. See More information about Tourist places in India . Thanks for sharing.

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  11. Feel like getting into a hope on hope off bus and see all the places.

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  12. hiee...frndzz..i m here.to share my feeling..its really a memorable day for me in bandipur resorts in that wild life safari,sanctuary etc...awesomee... i enjoyd a lot with my family..if u visit u ll defintly njoy d weekend...

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  13. Nice One. I liked it very much and felt beneficial for all..I am panning to visit br hills resort and also bandipur resorts this weekend with my family. because their facilites,sevices offered at low cost,Wildlife Safari really really awesome..

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  14. Great post. I used to be checking constantly this weblog and I'm impressed!
    Very useful information specifically the last section :) I deal with
    such information a lot. I used to be looking for this certain info
    for a long time. Thanks and best of luck.

    My web page ... Temple Run 2

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  15. http://arunthetraveller.blogspot.in/2013/01/badami-marvel-of-temple-architecture.html?showComment=1402925354374#c9048772863378882807

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  16. This is a great blog! I visited Begur temple today. The fact of the temple being slightly away from traffic area makes one feel good. As said not many people, not even localites know about this. Less visitors, calmness makes it one tell that it's better than a visit to mall :) :)

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  17. This is a great blog! I visited Begur temple today. The fact of the temple being slightly away from traffic area makes one feel good. As said not many people, not even localites know about this. Less visitors, calmness makes it one tell that it's better than a visit to mall :) :)

    ReplyDelete

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