3 day trip to Bijapur, Aihole, Pattadakal and Badami. This was a trip through the ages covering various rock temples, rock-cut cave temples, tombs, palaces and mosques ranging from 4th century to 17th century. This post covers the places visited in Badami on Day 3.

Trip in detail –

Trip through the ages – Badami

Day 3 – 20/09/2018

Location –

Previous day we had covered various ruins in Aihole and Pattadakal and reached Badami in the evening. We were very tired so booked the hotel rooms and rested for the day. The stay and food at Hotel Mayura Chalukya was good. Early morning on Day 3 we decided to visit the temples in Badami. All the places to visit in Badami are around the main Agasthya lake.

Bhutnatha temple group

We drove through some really narrow roads to reach the Bhutnatha temple complex. It was 7:30 am so all the temples were closed. We could only see them from outside. We had decided to skip few temples and directly go to Bhutnatha temple. It is situated on one side of the Agasthya lake. The lake was almost dry at this time of the year. The temple base would have been immersed in the lake during monsoon time. We saw the temple from outside. Also there were many rock carvings behind the temple area.
Next we drove over to the other side of the lake to visit the famous rock cut cave temples of Badami.

Famous rock-cut caves of Badami

In total there are 4 cave temples. They are burrowed into the side of a hill at various levels. The view from the caves overlooking the Agasthya lake is beautiful.
Each cave temple is extremely well designed and very beautiful. I felt they were better than the temples at Aihole and Pattadakal. They are all cut out off a single monolith rock with zero margin for error. First cave temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva. Second to Lord Vishnu. Third cave temple is dedicated to Maha Vishnu and fourth is a Jain temple, again showing the secularism in ancient India.
After visiting these temples, we decided to walk over to the other side of the lake to visit the archaelogical museum.

Archaeological Museum

It had many pictures of the ruins before it was rebuilt and various writings on the walls and few good sculptures still intact. No pictures were allowed inside the museum.
We were very hungry at this point so we walked back to the car and drove to the hotel for breakfast.

Trek up the North hill

After having breakfast we drove back to the lake to complete the small trek up the north hill. There are upper and lower Shivalaya, Tipu’s treasury, circular bastion and granaries. From the top of the hill we can see the beautiful view of the Agasthya lake and the southern hill housing the caves. Other side of the hill has a view over the Badami town. Also further we can see another trek route which is longer and leads to the Mahakoota temple. We were already tired so we decided to skip this trek.

After this we drove back to the hotel, had lunch and packed our bags and started the long drive back to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore late night at around 11.

Places visited –
Agasthya lake, Bhutnatha temple, four rock cut cave temples, archaeological museum, trek up the northern hill.