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.
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.
One of the city's oldest festivals, kept by the Thigala gardening community. On the Chaitra full-moon night a priest in women's dress carries the karaga — a towering jasmine-covered pyramid representing Draupadi — on his head without touching it through the old pete, stopping at the dargah of the Sufi saint Tawakkal Mastan.
March or April; the main procession leaves the Dharmaraya Swamy Temple at about 2am. Expect dense crowds in the narrow lanes and keep valuables close.
3 hrs
Haidar Ali's 1760 botanical garden around a three-billion-year-old peninsular gneiss rock, with Kempe Gowda's watchtower above it.
Opens at 6am; the morning walkers' crowd is part of the experience.
2 hrs
The 1870 park between the two old cities — rain trees, bamboo groves, and the red Attara Kacheri courts at its edge.
Sunday mornings, when it's closed to traffic, are best.
90 min
Through Kempe Gowda's 1537 pete, its trade streets and century-old temples, past the site where Mysore rockets were made and Sufi tombs from the 1791 war, to Tipu's Summer Palace.
Guided walks start early, before the market traffic.
3 hrs
A planned suburb of 1898, laid out after a plague outbreak, with old temples, a lively market and famous breakfast places.
Go in the morning for the market and breakfast.
2 hrs
The 1927 market hall and the cantonment's old bazaar quarter, with spice stalls, meat markets and Ramzan food streets.
Lively in the evening, especially during Ramzan.
90 min