A weekend getaway. To Panchgani. During the Dushera holidays :)
And it’s taken me all this while to get down to posting about it. I want to capture the memories. Before they get buried deep along with all the other travels.
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Highlights:
- Flowers everywhere! Clumps of tall (really really tall) yellow flowers lined the hill sides ALL the way from Pune to Panchgani. Nearer Panchgani, they gave way to smaller blue, red, orange ones. A feast for the eyes.
- Mapro Garden is amazing. No you cant really see chocolate/anything else being manufactured there. Was a bit disappointing. But their open kitchen cafe is awesome. Mouth watering sandwiches and pizzas. Delectable surroundings. Good fun for the kids.
- And oh, the first thing we saw there – Jain temple. Stumbled upon by accident searching for the hotel.
- Driving through Panchgani and Mahabaleswar ‘towns’ is like stepping back 20 yrs in time. A completely different pace. The houses, the shops, the streets, the people, all somewhat frozen in a time.
- The views are breathtaking. Each which way you look. Verdant green hills. Perfect blue skies with white cottony tufts of clouds floating by. Reflected in the numerous lakes.
- Strawberry season is apparently in March. We missed out completely.
- Weather is drastically different in Panchgani vs Mahabaleswar – just a 20 min distance apart. Both days 4:30 pm sharp dark heavy clouds engulfed Mahabaleswar hiding the views and making it quite chilly. After that, there’s really nothing to do except browse the handful of shops or chill at the hotel.
- The kid enjoyed it most of all. The playground etc at Parsi point, the Horse Riding & Boating at Venna Lake (both a first for him)., and chasing the monkeys at Arthur’s Seat.
- The road trip is enjoyable, and easy to chart out the various ‘points’ if you’ve got a map.
