Hidden Treasures of India: Mandu to Hampi

Met at Mumbai airport and driven to your hotel. After a rest, a first look at the city. The Gateway of India stands on the waterfront at Apollo Bunder, raised to mark the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911 and finished in 1924. Up on Malabar Hill, the Hanging Gardens are laid out over a reservoir, with views across the bay. Then the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, still the Prince of Wales Museum to many: designed, like the Gateway, by George Wittet, and full of sculpture, miniature paintings and bronzes from all over India.

A morning among the ruins. The Jahaz Mahal, the Ship Palace, was built in the fifteenth century on a narrow strip of land between two lakes, Munj Talao and Kapur Talao, so that from the water it seems to float. Beside it, the Hindola Mahal, the Swinging Palace, leans its massive walls inwards so steeply that they seem to sway. Then the Jami Masjid, a great courtyard mosque of red sandstone, with the white marble tomb of Hoshang Shah behind it — the first great building in India made of marble, which Shah Jahan’s architects are said to have come to study.

In the afternoon, out to the southern edge of the plateau and Roopmati’s Pavilion, from which, the story goes, the queen looked each morning towards the Narmada, far below on the plain. When Akbar’s general Adham Khan took Mandu in 1561, Baz Bahadur fled, and Roopmati, the story ends, took poison rather than be captured.

South into Maharashtra, to Ajanta. Thirty caves are cut into the curve of a horseshoe gorge above the Waghur river: Buddhist monasteries and prayer halls made in two great phases, from the second century BC and again in the fifth century AD, then left to the forest until a British officer out hunting a tiger came upon them in 1819. Their walls hold the finest paintings to survive from ancient India — the Jataka tales of the Buddha’s past lives, princes and dancers, and the Bodhisattva Padmapani, lotus in hand, in Cave 1. In the evening, on to Aurangabad — Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar since 2023 — for two nights. Ajanta is closed on Mondays.

A long day on the road, south across the Deccan plateau and into Karnataka, to Bijapur — officially Vijayapura since 2014. From the end of the fifteenth century until the Mughals took it in 1686, it was the capital of the Adil Shahi sultans, who filled it with domes, mosques, palaces and gardens. You arrive in the evening; the rest of the day is for resting.

A full day in Hampi, capital of the Vijayanagara empire from the fourteenth century until its army was defeated at Talikota in 1565 and the city sacked. The ruins lie scattered over miles of granite boulders along the river, among banana groves and paddy: temples, bazaars, palace platforms and aqueducts.

Start at the Virupaksha Temple, still in worship, its gateway tower rising over the old Hampi Bazaar. Then the Vittala Temple, with its stone chariot and its ‘musical pillars’, cut slender enough to ring when struck — they may no longer be touched. After lunch, the royal centre: the Lotus Mahal in the walled zenana enclosure, the domed Elephant Stables, the Queen’s Bath, and the Achyutaraya temple with the long street of the Sule Bazaar before it.

The morning at Badami, the old Vatapi, where cliffs of red sandstone close round the green water of Agastya Lake. Four cave temples were cut into the cliff above the town in the sixth century — to Shiva, with a dancing Nataraja of eighteen arms at the entrance; to Vishnu, in the largest, Cave 3, dated 578; and, the last, to the Jain tirthankaras. Across the lake, the North Fort holds the ruins of a treasury, platforms and early temples; a short drive away is the Banashankari temple, to a goddess worshipped as a form of Parvati. In the afternoon, west down to the coast and Goa, for three nights.

A whole day to yourself on the coast of Goa: long sands to swim from and walk, fishing boats drawn up under the palms, and fish curry and rice in a beach shack at lunch. If you would like more, we can arrange an afternoon in Fontainhas, the old Latin quarter of Panaji, or a spice farm inland.