Bangalore Travel Guide

Bangalore sits at roughly 920 metres on the Deccan Plateau, an elevation that gives India's third-largest city noticeably milder evenings than most other major Indian metros and that first earned it the name "Garden City," long before it became the country's IT hub. Lalbagh Botanical Garden, laid out over 240 acres by Hyder Ali in 1760, still draws crowds to its twice-yearly flower show inside a glass house built in 1889 and modelled on London's Crystal Palace. Cubbon Park's roughly 300 acres of tree-lined avenues sit a short walk from Bangalore Palace, a Tudor-style residence built for the Wadiyar royal family in the 1880s and still used for concerts and private events today. Beyond the parks, the city's food culture runs deep: century-old darshinis, third-wave coffee roasters and a dense pub scene along Indiranagar and Koramangala keep it lively well past dark.

Here, one can choose to take a long stroll through the beautiful Cubbon Park, shop in the many malls or street markets or hop into one of the many acclaimed breweries for a cold and refreshing drink. There are a huge number of beautifully decorated parks in the city that are ideal for going on a morning stroll or a jog. One walk through the 300-acre Cubbon Park, or the botanical gardens of Lalbagh, and you'll know precisely why Bangalore is so famously called India's 'Garden City'.

But just like every big city, the unprecedented growth of IT in Bangalore has reshaped quite a few things including rising temperatures, polluted lakes and heavily congested roads, especially in the newer areas. Aside from the central business and commercial districts (and the roads leading up to them), the neighbourhoods of Bangalore are mostly quiet and serene, especially the older parts of the city like Jayanagar and J.P Nagar.