About three and a half hours away from Bengaluru is the beautiful city of Srirangapatna. Famous for its Ranganathaswamy temple, it is the perfect day trip get away from Bengaluru or Mysuru. We did a Saturday day trip from Bengaluru and this is what we were able to accomplish.
Ranganathaswamy temple
We drove to Srirangapatna and thanks to the weekend traffic, it took us close to four hours to reach Srirangapatna. Since it was already close to noon, we decided to go to the temple first. Our jaws dropped when we saw the line. Because it was a Saturday, the temple was crowded and the line extremely long. We slowly made our way into the temple. The idol was absolutely beautiful. Here, Ranganathaswamy is depicted lying down with his eyes open. Our driver told us that this is one of the first temples that devotees of Ranganatha visit on their pilgrimages.
Lunch and shopping
It took us about an hour and a half to complete our temple visit and everyone was starving. Luckily, there are some nice places to eat on the highway near the temple. We had our thali lunch and then headed to our next stop…. shopping! Our driver told us there was a nice Karnataka government shop close to Daria Daulat Bagh. Because it was so hot, we decided shopping in the A/C showroom might be better than spending time in the sun. We were able to find some nice sarees at reasonable prices.
Daria Daulat Bagh
Around 3pm we headed to Daria Daulat Bagh – the summer palace of Tippu Sultan. A beautiful garden leads up to the teakwood palace. Inside the palace are beautiful floor to ceiling paintings (currently under restoration in some parts). After a quick tour, we headed back out.
Sangama
This is the spot where Rivers Kaveri and Lokapavani meet. This is considered to be a religious place where many people visit to pay respects to the departed souls. We went during a time when the water levels were low… so, we decided not to enter the river as it was not clean (very sad indeed). After spending about 15 minutes, we left.
We were told there were other areas in Srirangapatna with access to the cleaner parts of the river. But, since the water levels were so low, we decided against exploring further.
Back to Bengaluru
It was already 4:30 pm, so we decided to head back to Bengaluru. On the way we stopped by Chennapatna to purchase some wooden souvenirs before continuing our journey back to Bengaluru. We reached home around 9 pm and called it a night.
Bottomline
Srirangapatna is a beautiful town – only piece of advice, avoid the weekends if you can or start early in the morning to avoid the rush at the temple. I am told that on most days the lines are short. If you go during summer, you will definitely be slowed down by the heat. There are many other outdoor sites to explore in Srirangapatna but we did not because the heat. Bottomline – don’t bypass Srirangapatna – do stop and take in the sights.
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