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Ah, why don’t you travel up the state to Pattadakal! On the banks of the great Malaprabha river, what a dreamy little hamlet it is! It has become a rather important tourist spot in recent times.

It sees moderate temperatures all year round but if you are looking at optimizing your trip weather-wise, I must advise you to choose anytime between October and February! It will make it that much more memorable! You’ll find one temple after another so that’ll make it a holy trip as well! Both in one shot!

Pattadakal lies a good 440km north of Bangalore. Do you want to take the road? Then you are looking at nearly 8 hours of journey! Best option in this case is to go with KSRTC. This company has a fleet of very comfortable buses with alert and reliable drivers who will safely take you across. They are a friendly and experienced lot and make it simple to book whether on the spot or in advance. Choose whatever suits you and jump onto the bus with an overnight bag full of goodies to munch along! Take friends along, the more the merrier! If it is a holy temple trip, then family accompanying you is simply fabulous! In case you are driving your own vehicle, best is to start from Bangalore very early in the morning say at about 4.30am. You will hit Badami by afternoon for sure so you can make a nice, stretched lunch layover there before proceeding to Pattadakal.

Since it is so hot these days, wouldn’t you rather travel quicker and in more comfort perhaps, like by train? Bad news is that takes almost as long!! And what is worse, Pattadakal does not even have a railway station it can call its own. You’ll travel through Badami and Aihole to reach Pattadakal. Badami, Sholapur Junction or Hubli Junctions are among 3 nearby train stations connected to Bangalore. If you alight at Badami, you can hail a taxi and it’ll ferry you to Pattadakal which is about 15 km away.

So now what? It is holiday time and we aren’t in a hurry so why think so hard. Let us figure out how to go about this. If you do plan to hop onto the train after all, I’ll tell you there are several trains to choose from. Depending on what time of the day you can manage to start, you have the Karnataka Express, Vivek Express, Coimbatore Express and Snsi Mysore Express among others. IRCTC has revolutionized the way we used to look at arduous train journey bookings months in advance! Just log onto the site and see what suits you. If are lucky, you may not have to wait beyond the press of a button and phew you’re on your way!

If you crank up your budget, you could even fly into Pattadakal but again remember that you have flights only up to say Hubli. Get there and arrange to get to Pattadakal. A one way ticket cold cost you up to Rs. 3150/- Whichever way, if you’ve set your mid to a getaway at Pattadakal, just go for it! Are you game?