Karnataka: Coffee Hills and the Ruins of Hampi

Met at Kempegowda airport and driven into the city. Breakfast or a late tiffin at Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazaar, open since 1943, for a benne masala dosa flooded with butter. Then Lalbagh, laid out by Hyder Ali and finished by Tipu Sultan, with its 1889 Crystal Palace glasshouse and a Peninsular gneiss outcrop older than most of the planet's rocks. Evening on Church Street for a microbrewery or a bookshop crawl.

Drive 145 km to Mysuru, about three hours on the ten-lane expressway opened in 2023, breaking at Srirangapatna for Tipu Sultan's teak summer palace at Daria Daulat Bagh, its walls covered in battle murals, and the Gumbaz where he lies beside his father. In Mysuru, tour Amba Vilas Palace, then Devaraja Market for kumkum pyramids and Mysore jasmine. Sunset from Chamundi Hill, and Mysore pak on the way down.

Out early to Somnathpur, 35 km east, where the Chennakesava temple of 1268 sits on a star-shaped plinth under three towers, every frieze band a different subject: elephants, horsemen, geese, the whole Ramayana. Back through Mysuru and west 120 km to Madikeri, about three hours, the air cooling and the roadside turning to coffee and pepper. Late afternoon at Raja's Seat as the mist fills the valleys below.

Walk the estate at dawn while the robusta is still wet, then drive up to Talacauvery at 1,276 metres, where the Kaveri rises in a small tank on the Brahmagiri slope. Down to Bhagamandala's triple confluence and on to Bylakuppe, the largest Tibetan settlement in South India, for the gilded Namdroling monastery and its eighteen-metre Buddhas. Lunch is pandi curry, sharp with kachampuli, and steamed kadambuttu.

About 170 km and four and a half hours north through Kushalnagar and Hassan district to Chikmagalur. Afternoon on Baba Budangiri, where, the story goes, the pilgrim Baba Budan brought seven coffee beans back from Mocha in the seventeenth century and started the Indian industry in his sleeve. Walk to the Dattatreya cave shrine, then take sunset over Hirekolale Lake with a cup of estate arabica.

Drive up for Mullayanagiri at first light, 1,930 metres and the highest point in Karnataka, with a short flight of steps to the little Mullappa Swamy shrine on the summit. Then the long haul east, roughly 300 km and seven hours, pausing at Chitradurga to walk part of the seven-walled hill fort. Reach Hampi in time to climb Hemakuta Hill for sunset over the Virupaksha gopuram.

Start at Matanga Hill before sunrise for the whole boulder field turning gold, then Virupaksha, still a working temple with its own elephant. Mid-morning at the Vittala complex for the stone chariot and the fifty-six carved pillars that ring at different pitches. After the heat, the royal enclosure: Hazara Rama's Ramayana walls, the Lotus Mahal, the elephant stables. End in a round coracle on the Tungabhadra.

Cross to Anegundi, the older settlement on the north bank that Vijayanagara grew out of, for the Pampa Sarovar tank and the Hanuman temple on Anjanadri Hill if the legs allow its 570 steps. Back for a late breakfast, then the transfer to Jindal Vidyanagar airport at Toranagallu, 40 km, or 160 km to Hubballi for the flight on.