Mysuru One Day Trip from Bangalore – Palace, Chamundi Hills & the City of Royals

📍 Stop 1: Chamundi Hills & Chamundeshwari Temple (Morning)

Start high and cool. Chamundi Hills rises to around 3,300 ft above sea level, and the road winds up to the Chamundeshwari Temple at the top. The goddess Chamundeshwari — a fierce form of Shakti — is the guardian deity of the Mysuru royal family, and legend has it she slew the demon Mahishasura on this very hill. That story is why the city is called Mysuru at all: Mahishasura → Mahishuru → Mysuru.

The original shrine dates to the 12th-century Hoysalas; the towering seven-storey gopuram came later, and the Wadiyars added to it over the centuries. On the way down, look for the giant monolithic Nandi — carved from a single black boulder and installed by a Mysore Maharaja back in 1664 — and the vivid statue of Mahishasura himself, sword and serpent in hand, a favourite photo stop.

What to Look For

• The hilltop gopuram — seven tiers of intricate carving, gilded and unmistakable
• The monolithic Nandi — one of India's largest, carved in situ from a single rock (1664)
• The Mahishasura statue — the demon the city is named after
• Panoramic views — on a clear morning the whole of Mysuru, palace included, spreads out below

📍 Stop 2: Mysore Zoo (Late Morning)

Formally the Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, the Mysore Zoo is not a modern add-on — it was founded in 1892 by Maharaja Chamaraja Wadiyar X from his own royal menagerie, making it the oldest zoo in India and one of the oldest in the world. It now spreads over roughly 157 acres and houses over 160 species.

It's also genuinely special among Indian zoos: it keeps more elephants than any other, and is the only one in the country to house chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, white rhinos and cheetahs. Allow an hour or so — it's a lot of walking, and it's a favourite with families travelling with children.

📍 Stop 3: Mysore Palace (Afternoon)

The centrepiece. The Mysore Palace you see today is not the original — an earlier wooden palace burned down during a royal wedding in 1897, and the Wadiyars commissioned the British architect Henry Irwin to build something that would not. Completed in 1912, it is a showpiece of Indo-Saracenic architecture, blending Hindu, Islamic, Rajput and Gothic elements under a five-storey central tower capped with a gold-plated dome.

Inside are the Durbar Hall and the Kalyana Mantapa — the octagonal wedding pavilion crowned with a stained-glass dome, worth the entry ticket on its own. It's one of the most visited attractions in the whole country, drawing around four million people a year.

📍 Stop 4: St. Philomena's Cathedral (Afternoon)

A complete change of register. St. Philomena's Cathedral is a neo-Gothic church whose design was inspired by the Cologne Cathedral in Germany. Its foundation stone was laid in 1933 by Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV — a Hindu king building one of Asia's largest churches for his subjects, which tells you a lot about old Mysuru.

The twin spires rise 175 ft, visible from much of the city, and a relic of St. Philomena is preserved in a catacomb beneath the main altar. Step inside for the stained glass and the cool, cavernous quiet.

📍 Stop 5: Brindavan Gardens (Evening)

The day ends with water and light. Brindavan Gardens lies about 12 km outside the city, laid out across three terraces below the Krishnarajasagar (KRS) Dam on the river Kaveri. It was created between 1927 and 1932 by the Dewan Sir Mirza Ismail and designed by the German landscape architect Gustav Krumbiegel, and spreads over some 60 acres of symmetrical lawns, fountains and flowerbeds.

The main event is the musical fountain in the evening, where jets of water dance in time to music as the light fades — a fitting, slightly theatrical close to a day of palaces. From here the bus turns for home.