Pherozeshah Mehta Gardens (Hanging Gardens)

High on the crown of Malabar Hill, where the roar of central Mumbai thins into the rustle of old rain trees, the Pherozeshah Mehta Gardens occupy one of the most improbable pieces of ground in the city: the roof of a working municipal reservoir.

• The terraces were laid out in the early 1880s, a date usually given as 1881, and the greenery was planted over the covered tanks that still hold part of the water supply for the neighbourhoods below.
• Everyone calls the place the Hanging Gardens, a nickname earned by the way the planting beds step down the hillside in tiers rather than by any resemblance to the ancient wonder.
• The formal name honours Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, a towering figure in the civic life of nineteenth-century Bombay.
• What visitors remember is the topiary.
• Hedges along the central walks have been clipped for generations into elephants, bulls, deer, a camel and other creatures, and children tend to conduct their own safari from one green animal to the next.
• Flower beds are laid out in geometric patterns, with a floral display near the main entrance that is replanted seasonally.
• The real prize sits at the western parapet: a broad, low wall where the ground falls away and the Arabian Sea opens out, with the long sweep of the Back Bay and Marine Drive curving off into the haze.
• Come an hour before sunset and the whole arc turns amber, then pricks into lights.
• Across the road lies a separate hilltop park with its own viewing terrace, so the two are easily combined.
• Around the gardens is a quiet residential neighbourhood that includes private religious precincts closed to visitors; keep to the public paths and photograph the view, not the houses.
• Entry is free and the gardens open early for walkers, but proposals to rebuild the ageing reservoir underneath surface periodically, so confirm current access before making a long detour.
• For food, Malabar Hill itself is residential and thin on eateries, but the Girgaum and Charni Road side of the hill is one of Mumbai's strongest pure-vegetarian belts.
• Downhill towards Chowpatty and Girgaum you will find long-standing Gujarati and Maharashtrian thali houses, dairy-and-farsan shops selling khakhra, dhokla and shrikhand, and snack counters doing pav bhaji, sabudana vada and bhel.
• Many of these are vegetarian throughout, but Mumbai is also a major seafood city, so read the board at the door and ask the counter to confirm a fully vegetarian kitchen before you order.
• Udupi-style counters near Charni Road station are a dependable fallback for idli, dosa and filter coffee at any hour.