8 Places to Visit in Mysuru

The Wadiyar dynasty ruled the kingdom of Mysore from here for most of six centuries, interrupted only by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan's rule in the late eighteenth century, and the city's layout still radiates outward from Mysore Palace along broad avenues laid out under Wadiyar-era urban planning rather than growing up around a colonial cantonment grid, as many other South Indian cities did.

Mysuru's most visible modern institution, the University of Mysore, was founded in 1916 as one of the earliest universities established outside British India's presidency capitals, and its Manasagangotri campus still surrounds Kukkarahalli Lake on the city's western side. The city is equally known for its Mysore silk sarees, sandalwood carving and oil, and the dense, layered sweet called Mysore Pak, all still produced and sold within a few kilometres of Devaraja Market.

Mysuru Junction connects the city to Bengaluru in roughly three hours by rail and road, and to Chennai and Kerala's hill stations beyond; Mysore Airport at Mandakalli has run only intermittent scheduled commercial service in recent years, so most air travellers route through Bengaluru instead. The ten-day Mysuru Dasara festival each September or October, built around the Chamundeshwari Temple's mythology and culminating in a lit-up palace and an elephant procession, is the single best-attended and most disruptive-to-plan-around event on the local calendar. October through March is the most comfortable stretch for walking the city; April and May bring the Deccan plateau's sharpest heat.