Travel in Mysore

Fifteen tours run in our India programme. One of them stops in Mysore: The diversity of South India, 25 days from EUR 2,860. That is the honest starting point for this page. We sell one route that reaches the city, and it gives you a single night there.

Mysore is day 16, near the middle of a long southern loop. You come down by road from the hill station at Ooty, across the Nilgiris — there is no flight and no train on this leg. The city day is a full one and the itinerary names what it covers: the Mysore Palace, home of the Maharaja, with its mix of Hindu, Indo-Islamic, Rajput and European building styles; the sandalwood work the city is known for, in figurines, incense and soap; the flower and spice markets; and Chamundi Hill above town for the view back over the rooftops. The palace opens daily from mid-morning until about half past five, so an afternoon arrival still works. You sleep one night at the Fortune JP Palace in a Deluxe room. The room tiers across our programme are Standard, Deluxe, Superior and Executive. There is no five-star tier, here or anywhere else in the range.

The next morning you leave. Day 17 runs out through Srirangapatna, the old island capital, where the itinerary stops at the Ranganathaswamy Temple — not at Tipu Sultan's summer palace or his tomb, which sit in the same small town but are not on the schedule. Then Shravanabelagola, where the 18-metre statue of the Jain ascetic Bahubali stands at the top of more than 600 steps up Vindhyagiri Hill. That is a real climb in the heat, and worth knowing before the day starts. The night is in Hassan. From there the route carries on to the Hoysala carvings at Belur and Halebid, two nights at the ruins of Hampi, the cliff temples at Badami, and four nights on a Goa beach, where the free days come with no vehicle and no guide.

Now the part that costs us traffic to write down. The palace illumination — the lights switched on for about three quarters of an hour on Sunday evenings and public holidays — is not written into this itinerary. Our trips are private and carry no fixed departure dates, so which weekday you land in Mysore depends on when your trip starts. If seeing the palace lit matters to you, raise it while the dates are still open, not after. Dasara, the ten-day festival in September or October that the city is best known for, has no departure built around it. And there is no safari. Bandipur, Nagarhole and Kabini are all within a couple of hours of Mysore, and none of them appears in any itinerary we sell. The only wildlife on this trip is Periyar in Kerala on day 9: a boat ride on the lake if the water level allows, and a walk along the park boundary, outside the park. Not a jeep safari. Brindavan Gardens is not on the schedule either, and this is not a yoga trip — the Ashtanga schools in Gokulam that bring people to Mysore for months are a different kind of stay entirely.

Our two other southern routes do not touch Karnataka at all. South India – Exotic World, 11 days from EUR 1,570, runs Chennai to Kochi through Tamil Nadu and Kerala. India – from North to South, 14 days from EUR 1,840, pairs the Golden Triangle with Kerala and flies Jaipur to Kochi in between. Both are good trips. Neither goes near Mysore, and we would rather you read that here than find it in an itinerary after paying a deposit.

Every trip is private and guided, with a German-speaking guide, 24-hour contact and a bottle of water when you land. International flights are not included.