Kamala Nehru Park

Perched near the crest of Malabar Hill, Kamala Nehru Park is one of Mumbai's smallest and most affectionate public gardens — a terraced pocket of lawn, hedge and flowering shrub you can walk end to end in a few minutes, and which generations of the city's families have treated as a standing weekend appointment.

• It was laid out in the early 1950s and named for Kamala Nehru, and it sits directly across B. G.
• Kher Marg from the better-known Hanging Gardens, so the two are almost always visited as a pair.
• Where its neighbour goes in for clipped topiary and formal beds, this park keeps things plain: paved paths, benches in the shade of old trees, a children's play area, and a low parapet that is the real reason most people climb the hill.
• The park's mascot is the Old Woman's Shoe, a large concrete boot built straight out of the nursery rhyme, with a narrow internal staircase and a slide running down the back.
• It is modest by any theme-park measure and utterly beloved anyway — for a great many Mumbaikars it is the first structure they remember climbing, and on a Sunday morning there is a cheerful, patient queue of small children waiting their turn at the top.
• Nearby you will usually find a few animal-shaped topiary figures and a rockery, kept simple and kid-scaled.
• Walk to the far edge and the city opens up.
• Because Malabar Hill rises at the northern end of Back Bay, the parapet looks down over the sand at Girgaum Chowpatty and along the entire curving arm of Marine Drive — the view reproduced on a thousand postcards, and the one that earns the promenade its nickname, the Queen's Necklace, once the street lamps come on after dark.
• Come at sunrise for clear air and an empty terrace, or in the hour before dusk when the lights begin to catch.
• Entry is free, the park is compact and step-heavy in places, and it pairs naturally with Hanging Gardens opposite and the old Banganga Tank precinct further along the ridge.
• For food, plan to eat downhill rather than at the gate; the immediate hilltop is residential and has little beyond a drinks cart.
• Malabar Hill and Walkeshwar have long been home to Gujarati and Jain families, and the lanes around Teen Batti and Walkeshwar hold small thali kitchens and sweet shops that reflect that — check the board and confirm the kitchen is fully pure-vegetarian before you order, since Mumbai is a major seafood city and neighbouring outlets on the same street often are not.
• A longer walk or short taxi ride down to Girgaum Chowpatty brings you to the bhelpuri, sevpuri, ragda-pattice and pav-bhaji stalls the beach is known for; these staples are vegetarian, but it is still worth asking each stall directly.
• Around Charni Road and Girgaum you will also find Udupi-style counters doing idli, dosa, uttapam and filter coffee — again, ask before ordering rather than assuming.