A lively metropolitan city!. Review on Bangalore

During last Christmas holidays, I decided to drive down to Bangalore, Mysore and Ooty. Though I had been to Bangalore previously, the trips were mostly related to business/office work and this was first time we were visiting the city for vacation.

How to Reach: Bangalore is a prime hub and being a metro city well connected from all other places. Just for the benefit of people taking road (from Goa/Pune/kolhapur) we headed to NH4 (Pune-Bangalore highway, via Hubli). The road is awesome and you can cover a lot of distance quickly.

City: City is typical metropolitan - full of vehicles, people, noise and pollution! As a new comer to the city, you kind of start feeling uneasy but eventually get used to it and start liking the city lifestyle (saying by experience, having stayed in another City, Pune).

What to see/do? Like all tourists, I had listed the most famous spots to visit while I will write more detailed reviews of some of them, mentioned below in short few tips about each.

First day, we took the half day city tour of KTDC which covered the following: (They have another one which is a full day  tour)

See their site here: https://karnatakaholidays.net/city_holidays.htm

Vidhan Souda - the state legislative assembly building

Archaeological Govt. Museum & Visvesvaraya Museum

Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace: Nothing great!

Botanical Garden/Laal Baug: Hopeless! Tiring walk in an open park.

Bull Temple: Nice, huge statue of bull, situated in Basavanagudi.

Gavi Gangadhareshwara Temple: Small temple inside a cave.

Next day, I did few places on my own:

Iskcon Temple (Read my review here: https://mouthshut.com/review/ISKCON-Temple-Bangalore-review-rnsoumqtmu)

Metro ride(from near Iskcon temple, take a metro ride upto Mantri Mall, in case you want to have a taste of Metro).

M G Road - lots to shop!

Chickpet Market: Local market, where you can get all kind of stuff.

Other places which we didn't do:

Bangalore Palace, Wonderla Amusement Park - about 30 kms away from city, need about a day to be spent, Cubbon park, Bannerghatta Park - heard a must-visit, however we had to skip due to time constraint

Stay:There are various options to stay around Majestic and other parts of the city and I wouldn't say, prior booking is a must. We booked into a decent hotel, Pai Vihar right near the Corporation Circle (Read my review here: https://mouthshut.com/review/Pai-Vihar-Lodging-Boarding-Hotel-Nagarathpete-Bang
alore-review-pttmuplsmu)

Anything to shop for? Lots! The city has several malls, one of them we visited was Orion Mall and the Big Bazar near by to it.

Other Shopping complexes: Phoenix Marketcity, Mantri Mall

Tip:  Avoid driving in the city, especially if your car is new or you love it very much and like to keep it scratch less. Traffic is really heavy within city and your car is best left in the Hotel parking lobby.

Rickshaw fellows will tell you extra fare or charge 1.5 times the fare. Check with any local approx fare and then either negotiate or ask to use meter.

Otherwise, the best option is Ola cabs, reasonable and guaranteed service.

Weather in Bangalore has always been nice and pleasant. City is best for a few days site seeing, shopping and experiencing metro life!