Travel Day 929 – Bangalore, Karnataka, INDIA
My 12 hour overnight train ride had been pretty uneventful and after some decent sleep I arrived in Bangalore in the morning…
Remaining Parts of Bangalore Fort
Luckily this time around the train had arrived to a decent hour as well and Bangalore had been the last stop, so everything was pretty smooth sailing as far as I was concerned. Also the fact that it was actually quite chilly in the morning and I could wear my jumper filled me with great joy after those extremely hot and humid days in Kochi. Only the fact that this was had been my first train ride in India without my travel-wife made me feel a little bit sentimental again…
But once I had settled in and found myself on the streets and walking to explore the city, all was good again. Everyone had warned me already that there was not too much to see in Bangalore, but I personally did not care. On the one hand I really only came to Bangalore to see my teacher, but on the other hand I thought there was always something to see, especially in a big city and especially in a big city that had some history…
Tipu Sultan’s Palace in Bangalore
So for today I had looked up some historical sites that I wanted to visit and I started with the Bull Temple. This was a 16th century Dravidian style temple with an enormous monolithic bull statue of Nandi. While the temple itself wasn’t really large, it was at least a very charming structure, set in a leafy green garden that was worth a stroll around. There were also a few other temples around, but the Bull Temple was clearly my favorite…
Next on my list was the Lalbagh Botanical Garden which had been laid out by Hyder Ali in the 17 hundreds. While this extensive garden had some water tanks and even a mini version of the London Crystal Palace, it wasn’t quite as shady and leafy green as I had hoped it would be and so I rather carried on to my next destination, Tipu Sultan’s Palace…
Bull Temple in Bangalore, India
Set in a small garden, I found the remaining historic structure of what once had been the Tipu Sultan’s Palace. While it seemed unfortunate that only one building was left out of the once exiting compound, at least this building had a certain richness in detail. It was an open-faced building to three sides that appeared as a single storey structure through its tall wooden columns, but inside it was actually a split level with stairs leading up and down to all three sides…
The last historic structure I then visited was the remains of Kempegowda’s fort. Apparently the fort had once been a mighty structure, surrounding the historic city of Bangalore and including Tipu’s Palace with the nearby temples. Today there was only a little portion left of this historic fort and while I visited it, I couldn’t help but think that there was definitely something to see in Bangalore… : )
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