Tourist Attractions and Places near Pune and Mumbai

This is probably the easiest way to experience the lakes of switzerland, right in Maharashtra! Bamnoli village on the banks of the Shivsagar lake formed due to the Koyna dam is a small community of people, who mainly cater to the tourists wanting to visit Vasota fort, Nageshwar Shiv Temple and also Tapola.

Click here to see a bigger version of the above panorama

How to go to Bamnoli: Bamnoli lies at the end of the Kaas plateau. You have to go to Satara, cross the city and then take the right at the fork at the end of the city. The road at the left (through a tunner) would go to Thoseghar. Once on this road you have to drive for around 30 kms (crossing kaas lake and the beautiful flower beds) and then climb down to the shore of the Shivsagar lake. Though google maps doesnt show this road, this exists and is a good condition road, not the offroading type. As you descend the ghats onto Bamnoli, you are rewarded with views as comparable to european lake destination (provided you visit this place around the monsoons/winter).

Once in Bamnoli, you can choose from lot of boating options. You can just go for a ride around the shivsagar lake. Or, go for a boat trip to Tapola, also known as mini kashmir. The rates are reasonable, provided you have a group of 5-6 people. Otherwise, you anyway have to pay the group price. If you have time, you can also go on a guided tour to Vasota fort or the famous nageshwar Shiv temple. The waters are right up to the roads inside the village. In fact, there are few buildings which are half-submerged. I guess the end of the village is defined by the amount of water in the backwaters. There is even a Bank of Baroda branch here. So, if you want to, you can even open an account here!

I was just looking around for stuff to photograph, when i noticed something big flying overhead. Thinking it to be a big bird, i followed it and then when it came into view, i realised that it was a big bat. Then i saw the hundreds of bats on the few trees next to the shore. They were there only on these few trees. I was lucky to see this as i would have just returned to my car if not for this low flying bat.

You can go to Bamnoli as a separate trip and then spend the day with a boating trip to Tapola or combine Bamnoli with a visit/drive to the Kaas plateau, as we did.

written by Rajaram S

Chalkewadi is a plateau known for its windmill farms. There are hundreds of huge windmills in this area. You can see details (directions, photos etc) on this other post. We had gone back to this place during the monsoon (combining with a trip to Thoseghar waterfalls). It was an extremely windy day. If you see the photo below, you can the water from the waterfall being blown upwards because of the force of the wind.

Once we reached the top of the plateau, we didnt see any windmills. For a second, i thought that i had missed the correct path. It never occurred to us that the mist was so heavy that we couldn’t see the huge windmills even while we were practically standing at the base of one! Luckily, it was not so cold considering the wind and the mist. Akshara enjoyed the conditions and she, surprisingly, found this harsh environment conducible for an impromptu dance We also saw a plant whose movement in the wind looked cool. Akshara thought that this was a giant caterpillar! Check out the video below.

written by Rajaram S

The advantage of being in a place where there are distinctly different seasons is that you can keep going to the same place at different times and see totally different sights. This is the situation in and around Pune. During the monsoons, the whole area gets a facelift and everything looks green. So, on my second trip to the Bhuleshwar Shiva temple, the whole area around the hillock was green and presented a beautiful sight.

To know about the route to Bhuleshwar temple from Pune, check out the post from my first trip.

This time, i went a little earlier in the day around early evening. So, there was sufficient light inside the temple for me to photograph the statues. If you look at most of the statues inside the temple, they would have mutilated heads or legs. It seems that these statues were broken by the Mughal invaders centuries back when there were on an expansion spree.

Akshara was sleeping during the drive up to the temple. But she woke up on hearing some drums being played outside the temple. Even though she was half awake, she was very cooperative with our various photo requests

My new camera, Sony DSC TX5, has a sweeping panorma feature which is pretty cool. Click on the photo below to see a much bigger version.

written by Rajaram S