new season begins: Bhuleshwar, Theur & Ramdhara

The arrival of monsoon triggers a dormant zone in case of travel enthusiasts. Be it planning for weekend, searching for locations, and of course food n pics....we welcomed this monsoon with  a trip to Theur, bhuleshwar and ramdhara.

The trip can be easily covered in a day.

Ghat road: Easy

Child friendly: Yes

Food: we took home food, but hotels are available alongside solapur highway

Theur

The Ganapati temple in Theur is one of the astavinayak temples of Pune. The temple is peaceful and doesn't have huge crowd. There is a parking place available for 4 wheelers near the temple. parking fees is 25/-. The temple premises contain temples for various Gods, Ganapati being main deity. After visiting the temple we shopped at local bazaar. We picked few seasonal fruits and peanuts..
You can check out other places that ca be clubbed with Theur is my other post

Bhueshwar

I have been planning to visit this place from quite a long time. Found the temple pictures on web and thought that this looks good and have read a few posts on it too. Finally made it this year. I don't the historic details of the temple. If there was any tablet to indicate the prominence of the location it would have been great.

The temple is on top of a small hill. The ghat road to reach the temple is manageable even if its your first time. Need to be careful on the last stretch. The steps leading to the temple will themselves hint(the height was a bit greater than the usual ones) the age of the temple and its importance. The temple has a small inner courtyard...once you cross it you can see staircase leading from both directions. The sanctum sanatorium is similar to other shiva temples.. The speciality of this temple is its various idols adorned on the inner wall(most of them destroyed)

of the temple and the huge rock table with a tortoise engraving.....mostly we find a tortoise carving on the floor between Lord shiva and Nandi but this one was different. The inner courtyard has good air circulation and few spots for pics...

the only discouraging aspect is that most of the idols are vandalised you could only see the torso or head....there only only few is statues which are complete. It is told that during aarti time the small portion of prasad offered will disappear. The aarti timings are at around 7 in evening and morning. I hope to gather historic details and the prominence of the location next time.

There are few places, 'arugu'(raised flat seat) around trees and benches where the visitors can sit. We choose one such place and had our lunch. We rested for some time and then started for Ramdhara.

Bonus: There are quite good nurseries after crossing Uruli....we bought few pots...they cost at around half the price when compared to Pune.

Ramdhara

This is our third visit...we were little bit exhausted by the time we reached the temple(credit to the kiddos and their enthusiasm). The temple is surrounded by a small pond which hosts two families of ducks. Their is also an enclosure which contains the engravings pertaining to the Dasavatara's of Lord Vishnu.

The vehicles are not allowed inside the premises after 6pm. Do check my other post on Ramdhara