Bengaluru holy and ancient sites

Let' start our today trip around Bangalore at the gate, where everything started. In the first half of 16th century, Kempe Gowda I, a chieftain of the Vijayanagara Empire, founded the modern Bangalore. One of its first building was the Bangalore Fort.

Let me introduce you to Kempe Gowda I and his horse.

Let's enter the gate.

In fact all that remains of the fort is the Delhi Gate and remnants of two bastions. After they captured the fort in 1791, the British started dismantling it, a process that continued till the 1930s. Most of it is visible on the picture below.

Together with a small holy cow.

The last ruler of Mysore, the kingdom Bangalore was part of before English invasion, was Sultan Tipu. Let's visit his palace.

In fact it is a Summer Palace, so it is quite open.

The structure was built entirely teak and stands adorned with pillars, arches and balconies.

There are beautiful floral motifs embellishing the walls of the palace.

It is believed that Tipu Sultan used to conduct his durbar (court) from the eastern and western balconies of the upper floor.

And there is a hinduism Kote Venkataramana Swamy temple just next to it, built in 1689 by King Chikka Devaraja Wodeyar, then ruler of Mysore.

This is the entrance to the temple.

In fact there are plenty of hinduist temples around Bangalore.

Some of them are not even higher than the buildings nearby.

This is the entrance to the area sourounding one of the most important hinduism temples, the Big Bull temple.

But people of different religions also can find places for their prayer.

Like very European in the style St. Patrick's Church.

or one of the main churches in the city - St. Mary's Basilica.

I hope that you have enjoyed our trip to Bangalore. It is a huge city so we still haven't seen everything. Maybe we will visit it one more time one day.

Bengaluru city centre

Last trip we have finished following the holy cows. Tracking them we arrived to the Bengaluru city centre and its main building as the capital of Karnataka state.

Ladies, gentleman and horses, welcome to Vidhana Soudha, the building of the Karnatak state perliament. You can think it is "just" a state legislature, but remembering about Karnataka population of over 60 million inhabitants, its decisions influence a population similar to those of largest European countries. As everything in India it is huge, 700 m long, 350 m wide and 50 m heigh.

Just in front of the building there is a statue of the father of Indian constitution, B. R. Ambedkar.

On the other side of the street stands the seat of the High Court of Karnataka.

Next to it comes also an entrance to the Bengaluru metro.

Coming back to the parlimant buidling, you can admire its interesting style, sometimes described as Mysore Neo-Dravidian. It incorporates elements of Indo-Saracenic and Dravidian styles.

South of the central building you will find the Sri Chamajarendra Park.

Great place to rest from the rush, noise and heat of the city.

Some of the trees are really impressive.

This is also the case for some of the avenues.

In the middle of the park you will find the State Central Library of Bengaluru. I really think this is a great idea to be able to borrow a book, lie on the grass and rest in the shadow.

The park ends just next to the Bengaluru Town Hall.



Quite close, at least by Indian standards, there is a memorial of all the brave Indians, that lost their lives in the First World War.

And the place where the next generation of soldiers can present to the society.

  

It is really hot in India. Before we move to the next attractions I suggest that we take a sip of fresh coconut milk.

Streets of Bengaluru

The streets of Bengaluru are very colourful.

Their main users are small three wheeled taxis called auto-rickshaws,

They sometimes even come with modern navigation and communication equipment.

And often ornamented.

Generally ornaments are quite popular in India.

But before I show the best ornaments, I must demonstrate to you that even locals often say that only the city centre of Bangalore is a town. The rest is still a village, just with 10 millions inhabitants.

With electrical installations everywhere in the air rather than underground. Some of them are even decorated.

But the best decorations I've seen during Holi, the festival of colours. And they were fantastic figures travelling through the streets.

Half of the town was orange. You can read about the many meanings of colours in India in a great article in Smithonian Mag.

The stores went also into the streets with their offer.



And the same do all the city population.



Including the holy cows.

What gives another argument for the ones claiming it is just very dense rural area.



Let's follow the cow and see wen we can get next week.