Ramdara temple is a beautiful temple near Pune and best time to visit this place is monsoon.
We have no plans to go out on weekends but Aaravya's friend Diveagar's trip made him want to go on a trip too and he started insisting us to go out for a trip. We had no choice but to take him because we could not tell him the reason of office as it was Saturday. Instead of wasting so much time on convincing him, we got ready but were debating over Ramdara or Kanifnath and then finally decided to go to Ramdara temple.
I quickly went downstairs and
asked my in-laws if they wanted to join us and they immediately agreed as they
didn't go anywhere due to lockdown. We assumed that there would not be
much crowd otherwise they would have had to sit in the car.
We visited Ramadara Temple on 28th November 2020.
Ramdara Temple as seen from walkway |
How to get at Ramdara?
GPS shows the exact location
and almost all mobile operators have network there.
It is on Pune-Solapur
highway, around 30km from Pune. Go on the Solapur Highway, cross Hadapsar and proceed
towards Manjiri and then Loni-Kalbhor. Once
you cross the toll booth, you have to cross a bridge. After crossing bridge,
slow down your vehicle and look for a right turn. Take right turn and proceed
towards village, you will get a chowk where again you need to take a right and
go straight till the temple. The road construction at railway crossing near
Ramdara was in progress so we had to take a diversion to reach the temple which
took us some more time to reach the destination.
Do not go via Phursungi as
the road condition is very bad and no sign boards are available on the roads so
it would be difficult to find the route and reach the temple as GPS also do not
work on some places.
We reached the destination
around 12.30pm within 1.5 hours from Pune. Ample of parking space is available
there. Parking is little away from the temple, and one has to walk for 5
minutes to reach the temple.
You don’t see the temple
until the last minute as it is hidden within hills and trees. It is a very
scenic temple with idols of many deities, but main shrine is of Shiva. The
Temple is very colorful as it has beautiful paintings of Indian mythology such
as Lord Ganesh, Shri Krishna, Hanuman, Arjun, Sant Dnyaneshwar, Sant Tukaram
etc. There is a Royal Nandi that catches
the attention so no one can stop themselves from taking photos. The area is
very peaceful away from the crowds but still very lively. You can see a lot of
birds there.
Bull (Nandi) |
Lord Shankar and Parvati |
Lord Krishna |
Next to the temple is also an
ashram of Shri Mangalpuri Maharaj also known as Dhundi baba.
The lake next to the temple adds to the beauty of the temple. There is a beautiful walk around the lake where you can walk and explore the surroundings. The walkway is closed due to Covid-19 to avoid possible crowds on that route. A guard (priest) was constantly watching the crowd and telling those who had taken the darshan to leave immediately.
After spending an hour there
we could see as many people coming to the place and so we decided to leave
before it got too crowded. On the way to the car we picked up some fresh
vegetables and fruits from the locals selling on the street.
We returned home @4.30pm soon
after having a lunch at Hotel Vaishali at Manjari.
Thanks for reading my blog, hope you liked it.
Happy travelling!!
Highlights -
Trip duration - 1 day (6 December 2020)
Distance travelled - 80Km
Budget - 3-4K