Mysuru

Mysuru (Mysore), 150 km south-west of Bengaluru in Karnataka's Deccan plateau, is one of South India's most elegant and culturally refined cities — a former princely state capital of the Wadiyar dynasty that retains its regal character in wide tree-lined boulevards, well-preserved colonial buildings, and an arts tradition rooted in six centuries of royal patronage of Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam dance, and the famous Mysore-style miniature painting tradition.

• The city's defining sight is the Mysore Palace (Amba Vilas Palace), the 1912 Indo-Saracenic marble edifice designed by British architect Henry Irwin for Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV.
• The interior is a dazzling combination of ornate Durbar halls with Belgian stained-glass ceilings, painted Mysore-style frieze panels, Italian marble floors inlaid with semi-precious stones, and a golden howdah (elephant-seat) used during Dussehra ceremonies.
• Every Sunday evening between 7 PM and 7:45 PM (and throughout the 10-day Dussehra festival in October), all 100,000 light bulbs outlining the palace's exterior are switched on simultaneously — turning the building into one of the world's most spectacular illuminated monuments, visible for miles across the flat Karnataka plateau.
• The Chamundeshwari Temple atop Chamundi Hill (3 km by 1,000 steps or 13 km by road) is the city's patron Shakti shrine — a magnificent 40-metre Dravidian gopuram tower and a 4.9-metre monolithic Nandi bull carved from a single boulder at the 800th step of the stairway.
• The Devaraja Market (a 100-year-old covered produce bazaar in the old city precinct) is one of South India's most visually striking urban markets — pyramids of crimson kumkum, turmeric, incense, and above all the legendary Mysore jasmine (Mysore mallige), whose uniquely heady fragrance is considered among the finest in India and worn in hair arrangements by women across the state.
• For vegetarian travellers, Mysuru is India's single best city for South Indian sweets and breakfast: the home of Mysore Pak (the dense ghee-saturated chickpea flour sweet invented in 1935 in the Mysore Palace kitchen by chef Kakasura Madappa — the original recipe is still sold at the same-family Guru Sweet Mart), the origin of the Mysore Masala Dosa (a crispy dosa spread with red chutney inside and a potato masala outside — distinctly different from the Udupi-style), and a city where filter coffee is more than a beverage.
• Mandatory tastings: Mysore Pak at Guru Sweet Mart (Palace Road); masala dosa at Vinayaka Mylari Restaurant (since 1938); curd vada and coffee at Hotel Hanumanthu; Mysore laddoo and coconut burfi at Sri Siddhartha Sweets.
• October to February is comfortable; Dussehra in October (the Mysore Dasara procession with caparisoned elephants and royal cavalcade) is one of India's greatest public spectacles.