Tourist Attractions and Places near Pune and Mumbai

If you are looking for the definition of a “Hidden Jewel”, then go to this place. Nestled on top of a small hill between Khadakwasla and Panshet dams, the Neelkanteshwar temple is the ideal place to experience nature as well as mythology. There is a Shiva shrine in this temple and it seems that it gets very crowded during shivratri, but the USP of this place are the hundreds of statues depicting every indian mythology story that you can think of. It is almost like “Amar Chitra Katha” coming alive in the form of statues. Added to this is the magical location of this temple with the backwaters of khadakwasla dam flowing down in the valley and the Panshet dam on the other side giving a “switzerlandish” feel. Click on the below image for a bigger resolution one.

How to go to Neelkanteshwar temple from Pune (Magarpatta City): A trip here would take you a total of approximately 5-6 hrs. 2 hrs to go, 2 hrs on the top and 2 hrs back. You first have to reach Khadakwasla dam (From Magarpatta: Go towards Swargate, Cross it and go on the one-way road to the t-junction, turn left, take the first right at the Mahalaxmi temple signal, this is the sinhagad road which will take you directly to Khadakwasla dam). Just before the dam, there is a road going down to the right with NDA on the sign. Take this road to go parallel to the dam and reach the other side. Once you reach the other side, turn left at the t-junction.

The above map starts from this road with the dam being on the top right of the map. The white line shows the route you have to take to reach the temple. After around 11 kms of winding road, you will see Splendour Country Club resort on your left. Keep going for another 3-4 kilometres and you should see an arch pointing to the left with signs for Shree Kshetra Neelkanteshwar. From here, the road looks bad, but it is ok to drive on with few bad patches in between. You will cross a bridge and come to a t-junction. Here, take left and keep driving. The map below is a zoomed-in version from this point (i.e. after taking the left after the bridge).

As you go along this road, you will see an arch on the right (click here to see the Arch’s photo). You have to take the right and climb up the hill. Going straight will take you to Panshet. Around 200 ms after you start climbing, you will reach the end of the village where you should see something like the photo below.

Many people park here (1st parking) and walk the rest of the way. The first time we went there, we had many kids along with us. So, we decided to drive as close as possible to the temple. A good decision! The distance between the 1st parking and the 2nd is at least 2 kms and it is all uphill. Unless you are in for a trek, better drive over to the 2nd parking. But, a big BUT, the road from the 1st parking to the 2nd is bad, full of rocks and loose gravel. I had taken a video of the road (with the camera attached to the bonnet) on the way down from the 2nd to the 1st parking. Check it out below and then decide for yourself whether your vehicle can handle it. The photo below is just before the 2nd parking. The cut part of the mountain is the place where you start your walk. For those with Google Earth, use this to see the location of the temple and this to see a flyover of the route from Khadakwasla.

From the 2nd parking, it is a steady uphill climb of around 20-25 minutes to reach the temple. Barring summer, this should be an easy and enjoyable climb giving you ample photo opportunities. The moisture in the air and the lack of a heavy lunch made us huff and puff our way to the top, but as you can see in the snap below, the local villagers made easy work of it barefoot!

Once you enter the temple, you are greeted by a huge sleeping Hanuman. Maybe he was too tired by the time he reached the top! Once you climb to the left, you see the Dasavataram and if you look beyond the statues and onto the valley below, you will be greeted with a view which i guarantee will stay in your mind for a very long time.

You can easily spend 2 hours on the top seeing each and every statue and trying to recollect the story behind the same. While Akshara was  busy identifying the characters she knew e.g. cow, snake and the ummachis all over place, we had a nice time discussing the stories associated with them. See the photos below and check how many stories you remember!

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written by Rajaram S

This was the first outing after the rains had started. Having seen the “wet green” in photographs of the western ghats, my expectations were very high. Sinhagad lived up to these expectations. It was drizzling and most of the fort was covered in mist. The sun was peeping through small gaps in te clouds making the whole scene ethereal.

This was also the first “long” trip for the Xylo. Yeah 25 kms qualifies as a long trip in Pune! The drive was enjoyable and Xylo managed the bad roads pretty well.

Route from Pune to Sinhagad fort: It took more than an hour to reach the base of Sinhagad from Magarpatta. You have to reach Swargate to catch the Sinhagad road. To go to swargate from magarpatta, go on the solapur highway (big bazaar, krome route ). Keep on going on this road and you will reach Swargate . Keep going until you reach a T-junction. On this junction, turn left and immediately you should see a mahalaxmi temple on the left and a traffic signal right next to it. At this signal , turn right and you are on Sinhagad road. The route to sinhagad passes through Khadakwasla dam. The dam was not overflowing then. Even with less water, the dam was a pretty sight with lot of revelers enjoying the waves and eating corn!

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Even with just a week or so of the rains, the greenery on the way was worth watching. Once we reached the base of Sinhagad, the commercialisation of the place became obvious with so many jeeps vying to offer you a drive to the top, if you didn’t want to go by yourself.

The road to the top of the fort is steep and the condition of the road is also not so good. Particularly, the hairpin bends have been very poorly designed with no provision of any kind of banking. It was a thrilling experience to take the xylo (with 7 adults) to the top. On many turns, i was forced to stop because of some oncoming vehicle and it was tough to start again on the curve and many a time i started to screeching tyres.

We did make a lot of stops on the way for many photo sessions. Nearing the top of the hill, mist almost covered the entire place. One particular view was amazing. The whole valley was in the shade/mist with the sun showing through only on a small area in the middle. The photo below doesn’t do any justice to the actual scene, but it can give you an idea have to start using RAW for all images from now on!

Once on the top, we had to get Akshara all dressed up, as it was quite chilly. This was our first outing with Akshara in Pune and it took quite a while to get Akshara in the sling. The last time she was in the sling was few months when she was much smaller! We didn’t spend long enough on the fort to explore it in its entirety, as we had some party to go to that evening. Anyway, this demo version was good enough to ensure that we visit again. More photos of the fort then.

written by Rajaram S