Belur and Halibid

Belur – Chennakesava Temple

In the earlier post I had put my experience in Chikmangalur, but while going to Chikmangalur we also visited Belur Chennakesava temple. The temple is simply extraordinary, though the architecture was build and developed in soapstone but making those magnificent structures is one of the best I should say. For each statue they give great amount of details like ornaments, style they pose etc are simply great. Rather than telling them in words it is good to see some the pictures. 

The temple has many statue and there are no identical statues, each of them is unique. There are about 106 elephants in which each of them show different mood and position. 

Some statue which I liked a most are the Narashima statue it shows the anger of lort vishnu in that avatar. Lord Krishna statue with floot is another unique structure which shows the how the Krishna completely involved in floot playing and the girls around krishna watching them. 

This temple is built during 1117 CE by Hoysala king Vishnuvardhana, the temple shows predominantly Karnataka Dravidian structure.

Halebidu – Hoysaleswara temple

This temple in Halebidu is something we visited when our way back to Bangalore to Chikmagalur. It has the similar structure and design pattern look the same like the Belur temple. This temple is dedicated to Hindu God Siva. Great design and really wonderful architecture around the temple. The temple is now very cleanly maintained and it is been announced as world heritage center. 

Also when I was reading an article recently by Lakshmi Sharath in yahoo life style where I see she gave a great insight on this temple. 

In the lost kingdom of Dwarasamudra

You would get more information and also some more cool snaps in the above link. 

Chikmagalur

It is been very long that I went for any outing with my family or friends. To my surprise I made a last minute decision to go to Chikmagalur. There are many nearby site seeing places in Chikmagalur but we just wanted a break and take test in Home stay which is located inside a coffee estate.

Chikmagalur is a place in Karnataka located near to Bangalore. I had to drive from Chennai to Bangalore and then we halted a day in Bangalore, the next day early morning we started to Chikmagalur. The best route from Bangalore is NH 75 which takes you to Hassan. The road is good and there were some national highway construction going on after Belluru. So if you are going from Bangalore try this route via Nelamangala, Kunigal, Belluru, Channayapattana, Hassan, Belur then Chikmagalur. 

On the way to Chikmagalur, you have many tourist attractions like Shravanabelagola, Belur and Halebeedu(I’ll put then in my next post). We have tried and covered these places. For morning breakfast you can go to Hotel Mayura near Belluru cross, which has very good food and you get authentic Karnataka food like Dosa, idly vada, pongal etc.

We stayed in a Chikmagalur in a Home stay called Athithi Home stay, I should say this place is very nice and the cook there called Krishna made delicious food. The food was amazing and we had been the whole day enjoying his food and roaming around the coffee estate. The homestay is a old house and renovated with all new amenities, where they kept the tradition alive and it was comfortable too. The place is completely surrounded by coffee plants, trees and great view of mountains.

I am planning to make next visit soon to this place, I didn’t had much time to see the attractions nearby Chikmagalur.

The other places you can visit are

•        Baba Budan Range

•        Dattatreya Peetha

•        Kemmanngundi

•        Kudremukh

•        Gangamoola

•        Ayyanakere

•        Hebbe Falls

•        Kalahatti Falls etc..