Hampi

Hampi is the ruin of Vijayanagara, capital of an empire that governed much of southern India between 1336 and 1565 and, under Krishnadevaraya, drew Portuguese and Persian visitors who described a city the size of Rome. It ended in January 1565 at the Battle of Talikota, after which the Deccan sultanates spent months sacking it. What survives is a 41-square-kilometre landscape of granite boulders, banana groves and the Tungabhadra river, listed by UNESCO in 1986.

Days here follow the light. Climb Matanga Hill before sunrise for the view across Achyutaraya's ruined bazaar, then walk down to the Virupaksha temple, the one shrine never abandoned, where the temple elephant is bathed in the river and the 1510 gopura of Krishnadevaraya still throws its shadow over the street. Late morning is for the Vittala complex, with the stone chariot that appears on the fifty-rupee note and pillars that ring when tapped.

Afternoons pass on the royal side: the Lotus Mahal, the eleven-domed elephant stables, the stepped Pushkarani tank and the Mahanavami Dibba platform where the empire held its Dasara. Cross the river by coracle to Anegundi, older than Hampi itself and identified in legend with Kishkindha of the Ramayana. This is a temple town: no meat, no alcohol, and a silence after dark that suits it.