Tour packages from Bangalore: the palace city, the coffee hills and the Nilgiris

The expressway

What changed when the Mysore road opened

Bangalore to Mysore used to be four and a half hours of stop-start on a single carriageway through a dozen towns. The expressway cut it to about three, and in doing so it changed what is possible in a short trip from the city. Mysore became a comfortable day out; Coorg and the Nilgiris became reachable weekends rather than expeditions.

That is why the Karnataka circuits are built the way they are. A five-day trip can take Srirangapatna, Mysore, the Coorg coffee country and the Hoysala temples at Belur and Halebidu without a single leg over three and a half hours. A six-day one adds Ooty in the Nilgiris, crossing into Tamil Nadu through the Bandipur and Mudumalai reserves.

The reserve crossing is the one fixed constraint: traffic is barred through Bandipur and Mudumalai between about nine at night and six in the morning to protect the animals, so that leg has to run in daylight. It is also the best free wildlife viewing in south India. The Bangalore chauffeur page covers the city and the departure timing.

Kempegowda airport sits about 35 kilometres north of the city, which is the single most important practical fact about starting a circuit here. From the airport to Whitefield or Electronic City can take two hours in the evening peak; to the Mysore expressway it is a long way round. Where a circuit heads south-west, the desk will often suggest meeting the flight and driving straight out rather than going into the city first, which saves the better part of a morning.

If you are staying a night before the circuit, that decision matters too. A hotel on the northern side near Hebbal or Yelahanka keeps the airport close; one in the centre puts you an hour from it but close to the restaurants and the parks. The Bangalore airport chauffeur page covers the transfer fares to each district, and the coordinator plans the first leg around whichever you choose.

Before you go

The city day most visitors skip

Bangalore has a reputation as a place people work rather than visit, and it is only half deserved. The city was laid out around gardens and a good deal of that survives: Lalbagh, begun in the 1760s under Hyder Ali and finished under Tipu Sultan, holds a Victorian glasshouse modelled on the Crystal Palace and one of the better botanical collections in Asia. Cubbon Park in the centre does much the same job on a smaller scale.

The historical half day is Tipu Sultan’s summer palace, a two-storey teak building from 1791 in the old city, and the Bangalore Fort beside it. Both are small, both are quiet, and together with the Bull Temple at Basavanagudi they make a coherent morning that almost no business visitor ever takes.

The third Bangalore is the one that actually defines it now — the breweries, the restaurants along Church Street and Indiranagar, and the bookshops. It is the best city in India for eating out at the middle price range, and a chauffeur who will wait outside makes an evening across two or three neighbourhoods straightforward.

One practical note: Bangalore’s traffic is the real constraint on any city day, and the difference between leaving at eight and leaving at ten is often an hour. The Bangalore chauffeur page covers that in detail, and the city guide has the districts and the airport run.