In my
previous post, I described what we saw at the historic city of Bijapur.
In this post, I will narrate what fun it was to see the beautiful caves of Badami Pattadakal and Aihole.
Day - 3 - Badami
We woke up early and decided to visit the famous
cave temples of Badami since, it would be much easier to climb up during the early hours of the day. There are 4 cave temples at Badami.
The idols and carvings are superb, it takes you back in the time when they were actually made. So much effort would have been put to carve these beautiful sculptures out of rocky mountains.
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| Beautiful idols at Badami Cave Temples |
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| Beautiful idols at Badami Cave Temples |
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| Beautiful idols at Badami Cave Temples |
On the other side of the cave temples there is a beautiful lake. On one edge of the lake you can see beautiful Shiva temple standing in all its glory.
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| Superb lake on the other side of Badami Cave Temples |
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| Shiva Temple at the edge of the lake |
Visiting the cave temples was an enchanting experience. We then headed towards
Pattadakal Temples.
Pattadakal & Aihole
You got to see this to believe it, this temple complex has many ancient temples which are very well kept. Services of a guide are highly recommended here.
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| Temple Complex at Pattadakal |
There are many stories carved out into these temples. Entire
Ramayana and
Mahabharata have been carved on some stones.
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| Ramayana carved on stone |
After Pattadakal, we marched on and reached
Aihole to see the famous
horseshoe shaped Durga temple.
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| Horseshoe shaped Durga temple at Aihole |
The places we covered today were simply mind blowing, each one had rich history behind them. The fact that they are all in this great shape after so many centuries, is just amazing.
Finally at about 1930 hrs we reached our hotel near Hampi. After yet another amazing day, we were all very excited to see what Hampi has to offer us the
next day!
