Ramdara Temple, Pune - Good place to spend 2-3 hours!!

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 28^th 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. 

Better to carry your own food as very few(hardly 2-3) options were available there.

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