Blissful Sights

My trip to Mysore was a crazy and memorable tour that I had in my life time. It was impulse trip decision taken by my crazy group. We had two days, one car and enough money to go for a reasonable trip and Mysore is only around 140 km from Bangalore where I stay. We left our place at four in the morning and reached Mysore within three hours.

It is a beautiful city with natural flora and fauna and I cannot miss mentioning the historic importance of this city. Mysore is best known for Mysore Palace and Dasara festival which is celebrated in a grand way from many years. During Dasara season which falls in the month of October, Mysore palace is decorated like a new bride. Though we did not visit the city during this festive season but still the palace stood with the same pride and glory.

Mysore palace is a three storied grand building which has now been exhibited with paintings, monuments and mannequin portrayal of royal people associated with the palace. Few unique rooms are worth mentioning when we talk about the palace like Kalyana Mantapa or the marriage hall which looks majestic due to the glass ceiling with peacock motifs, Gombe Thotti or the Doll’s Pavilion, a gallery of traditional dolls from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and Ambavilasa which was used by the king for private audience. All these rooms stand out of rest of the palace due to extra artefact of paintings, chandeliers, decorative steel grills and colourful glass ceilings.

Apart from palaces Mysore also has religious places which can be visited to see the unique architecture of Mysore temples. Somanathapuram Temple is one of the famous temples which are a star shaped temple with beautiful carvings of the walls. You can find carvings all over the temple including the ceilings and pillars. When you one looks at this piece of art then you are forced to appreciate the effort and creativity of people who made this with minimum tools available.

When you visit India then the architecture in each part of the country varies. Somanathapuram temple is a perfect example of what historians call Hoysala architecture.

Mysore has a Roman Catholic Church which is present since 1840 A.D. called St. Philomena's Church. It is said that this church resembles St. Patrick’s cathedral at New York and a church at Cologne. The glass windows of the church were actually made in France and the church looks really majestic with its twin spires 175 feet (53 m) in height.

There are some other places worth visiting like Chamundi Hills which has 1000 steps designed around 300 years ago with a temple on the top of the hill, Bandipur National park preserving the wild life in its purest form near the foothills of Niligiri Mountains and many other palaces and forts.

Interestingly Mysore has some famous ghost stories too. Most of the heard stories are related to the palace and other historic building. I am too scared to probe at these things. May be you will find something interesting, if you do…then let me know.