Malleswaram Marvels | Self Guided Walking Tour!

Malleswaram Walking tour. Yes, it is time to explore the second oldest suburb in Bangalore!

This is the second in the series of self guided Bangalore walking tours. Walking tour of a city is always fun and interesting. It helps you understand a city and its neighbourhoods better. Walking along and exploring a city brings you close to the people, heritage and culture of the place.

We always love to explore a city and its neighbourhood on foot whenever we travel. We normally take a walking tour with a guide for lack of information for a self guided walking tour. A self-guided walking tour also allows you to spend your time leisurely and absorb the essence of the place.

We were mulling on this idea of a series of “Self-guided Bangalore walking tours” which would help anyone interested to explore Bangalore on foot. These self-guided walking tours are easy to do. We have made sure the walking tour covers around 5 KMs and can be done in 4-5 hours. With adequate breaks, it helps explore neighbourhoods by walking around leisurely.

In this second part of the series on Bangalore Walking tours, we encourage you to explore marvellous Malleshwaram!  We invite you on this Malleswaram walking tour to explore its wide and tree canopied streets. Lovely parks. Iconic eating places.  And of course it has some well-known temples as well.

All this make Malleswaram a great place for a walking tour. This is nothing but Bangalore of the yore! Incidentally, Malleswaram is the second planned suburb of Bangalore along with Basavanagudi.

So what are you waiting for? Put on your walking shoes and let’s go……

The Plan

Circuit – Sankey Tank (lake) – Kadu Mallikarjuna Temple – Dakshinamukha Nandi Teertha Kalyani Kshetra – CTR – Venugopalaswamy temple – Wood Museum – Sankey tank (lake)

Total distance – 4.5 KMs

Total Time required – 5.30 Hours

Google walking Map – Malleshwaram walking map

The Itinerary

7 AM – Arrive at Sankey tank. Park your car/two-wheeler near Bhashyam circle. This is the start point of your Malleswaram walking tour. Go for a walk on the walking trail along the lake. The 2 KMs walking track will be buzzing with morning walkers and joggers. Enjoy the lovely vistas of mist filled lake. If you are lucky, you will find few water birds. After finishing the walk, go for a boat ride in the lake.

8.15 AM – Exit the lake on the opposite side near the 18th cross. Walk down the Sampige road to Kadu Mallikarjuna or Kadu Malleshwara temple. One of the oldest temple in Bangalore is dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. The temple was built in the 17th century A.D. by Venkoji, the brother of the Maratha King Shivaji in Dravidian style of architecture. Shiva is worshipped here as Mallikarjuna or Malleshwara. Spend 45 minutes experiencing the serenity of this old temple complex. The complex also includes a temple dedicated to Nandi. The name Malleshwaram comes from this temple.

9.15 AM – Head east to 3rd temple street to another fascinating temple. Known as Dakshinamukha Nandi Tirtha Kalyani Kshetra or Nadishwara temple. A temple with a lovely courtyard and a Kalyani and a south facing Nandi statute from whose mouth flos a clear stream of water which falls on the linga placed below. This was found when a excavation for a new building revealed existence of 400 years temple!!

10 AM – Breakfast time. You are spoilt for choices. But our recommendation for you is t0 taste crispy butter masala dosa at iconic Shri Sagar – locally known by the old name CTR (Circle Tiffin Room) – You may have to wait minimum of 20 mins to get seated in CTR on weekends.

11.15 AM – Walk north to 10th cross to visit another gem of a temple – Venu Gopalaswamy temple. Built in 15th century, the temple has a very beautiful idol of Lord Krishna with Flute (Venu in Sanskrit) – that’s why the name Venu Gopalaswamy!

12.15 PM – We will not make you walk now after breakfast unless you want to walk along the tree canopied Margosa road – one of the few roads still left with road side trees in Bangalore. We recommend taking an auto rickshaw to the interesting Wood Museum. Managed by Institute of Wood technology, this museum is interesting.

From a 780-year-old giant tree trunk to wooden tools, the display is completely dedicated to tracing the centrality of wood to civilisations. One section invites visitors to pick up slabs of woods from different trees to understand how dramatically different each wood weighs, whereas another section is dedicated to the variety of seeds. Detailed posters throughout the exhibit present trivia and facts about wood.

1.15 PM – Walk back to Sankey tank.

1.30 PM – Enter Sankey tank from the gate you exited in the morning. Walk back to your vehicle. If you want to go for another round of boating, do so.

2 PM – Return home.

Tips

1. This is a comfortable Malleswaram Walking tour covering key landmarks.
2. Wear a good hat and carry a water bottle.
3. If one is interested in visiting more temples then there is a Shirdi Sai Baba temple, Raghavendra Swamy mutt, Ganapathi temple. These are well-known landmarks.
4. Veena Cafe near 15th cross on Margosa road is another iconic restaurant famous for soft Idlis.
5. If one wants to enjoy more time in boating, then lunch can be had in MTR Malleswaram or Samrat restaurant in Chalukya Circle (Basaveshwara Circle) on the way back.
6. The wood museum is closed on Sundays.
7. Those who have time and are interested to explore further, can also visit two iconic buildings in Malleswaram.
   1. Government Girls School – The lovely stone building built in 1930s was the home of First Vice Chancellor of Mysore University Sri H V Nanjundaya. The grand two storied building sits at the centre of a large plot. One can see ornate grills and decorative barge boards in this heritage structure.
   2. Panchavati – The home of Sir CV Raman, India’s first Nobel Laureate in Science. A lovely heritage building built in 1930s, it is a single storied building in the middle of lovely garden. Unfortunately one can only see this from outside and it maintained by Raman Research Institute. More details here C V Raman house
   3. 
   4. You may follow this route map after breakfast if you want to explore the above two places as extended Malleswaram Walking tour – https://goo.gl/maps/xUBqS4PUkKwbJQLz5

We love to hear from you!

Hope you liked reading this post on second part of self guided Bangalore walking tours. Hope you liked this post on Malleswaram walking tour. What has been your experience of exploring Malleshwaram? We are eager to hear from you. Please dont forget to share this among your friends and inspire to explore “Marvellous Malleshwaram”!