Museum of Art & Photography
Opened in 2023, MAP holds over 60,000 works of South Asian art, photography, textiles and popular culture in a new building on Kasturba Road.
Closed Mondays; free on Tuesdays. The rooftop café is good.
2 hrs
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Bangalore
Bangalore keeps its history low and green: a 1537 watchtower fort, Tipu Sultan's teak palace, the cantonment the British laid beside the petes, and the parks that earned it its garden name.
Cubbon Park
1537
The mud fort
Kempe Gowda founds the pete town.
1791
The Company's city
Bangalore falls in the Third Mysore War.
1809
The cantonment
A second, British city grows beside the first.
1956
Vidhana Soudha
The granite seat of the enlarged Mysore State rises.
Venkatappa Art Gallery
The gallery of the Wodeyar court painter K. Venkatappa, opened in 1975 and reopened after a major renovation for its golden jubilee.
Combine with MAP next door.
60 min
Government Museum
One of India's oldest museums, founded in 1865, with the Halmidi inscription — the oldest known Kannada text — and Indus Valley pieces.
Closed for restoration in recent years; check whether it has reopened.
90 min
Indian Music Experience
An interactive museum of Indian music, from classical to film and folk, with a sound garden and instruments to play.
Closed Mondays.
2 hrs
HAL Heritage Centre & Aerospace Museum
Hindustan Aeronautics' museum of Indian aviation, with fighter jets, helicopters and early aircraft parked in the garden.
Good with children; check opening days before going.
90 min
J's La Quill Museum
Opened in 2016 in a century-old ancestral home overlooking Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace, it is a small private museum of handwriting, calligraphy and vintage pens.
Call ahead; it is a small private collection.
45 min