Dear All, Recently, my wife and I, left the kids with my in-laws and went on an 8 day road trip. The trip was as follows: Bangalore - Chitradurga - Hampi ( 2 days) - Aihole/Pattadakkal/Badami - Karwar - Mangalore - Mysore and back to Bangalore. It was a wonderful trip. We loved Hampi. We actually took Robert Sewell's book on the Vijayanagara Empire and sat on the Mahanavami Dibba ( the platform from which the king would watch the celebrations) and tried to figure out where Abdur Razzak and Domingo Paes were standing when they discribed the emperor's palace etc. Hampi was amazing and everything that we had dreamed of.
Aihole/Pattadakkal and Badami were great too. It was interesting to notice how strategically the Badami fort had been built. The town was built in between two cliffs. Behind the cliffs was a mountain range from which they couldn't really be attacked. between the cliffs was a lake - a captive water supply. I saw the Pallava inscription on the north gates; it gave me goose bumps. I have photos of the same and will post it sometime.