Hampi & Badami — Four Nights in the Vijayanagara and Chalukya Country

Hubballi has the airport and the main-line station for this circuit, and Hampi is about 165 km east of it — three and a half hours on a fast road through the cotton and sunflower country of the Deccan. Into Hampi by mid-afternoon. The first walk is the easy one: the Virupaksha temple and its bazaar street, then up Hemakuta Hill behind it for the sunset over the boulders, which is the view the place is known for and the right way to understand its scale before the detail starts tomorrow. · Hubballi to Hampi · overnight Hampi · Private car

The Vittala temple at 08:30 when it opens, before the day warms and the groups arrive: the stone chariot, the musical pillars you are no longer allowed to strike, and the long approach along the old bazaar. Then the sacred centre on foot — the Krishna temple, the monolithic Narasimha and the Badavilinga. The afternoon moves to the Royal Enclosure: the Mahanavami platform the kings reviewed the Dasara from, the stepped tank, the Lotus Mahal and the elephant stables. One ASI ticket covers the Vittala temple and the Zenana enclosure on the same day. · Hampi · Private car and on foot

A coracle across the Tungabhadra to Anegundi first thing — the settlement on the north bank is older than Hampi itself, and the village, the Gagan Mahal and the banana-grove lanes are still lived in rather than fenced off. Back across the river by late morning and then north-west, about 140 km and three and a half hours, into the Bagalkot country. Badami by mid-afternoon: the sandstone cliffs come into view before the town does, and the evening is the Bhutanatha temples on the far side of Agastya Lake, with the caves across the water catching the last light. · Hampi to Badami · overnight Badami · Coracle and private car

The four cave temples early, climbing from the lake: Shiva in the first, Vishnu in the second and third, the Jain cave last, and the inscription in Cave 3 that dates it to 578 CE and makes it the oldest firmly dated Hindu cave temple in India. Then the two sites that explain why Badami matters — Aihole, 35 km out, where more than a hundred temples record the Chalukyas working out what a temple should look like, and Pattadakal on the Malaprabha, a World Heritage Site where the northern and southern styles stand side by side. Back to Badami for the evening. · Badami · Private car

The Badami fort on the hill above the caves if the departure allows — the two Shivalaya temples and the view down over the whole town and lake are the best hour of the morning. Then the road back to Hubballi, 104 km and about two and a half hours, for the airport or the station. Your Live Traveller journey ends here. If the flight is late in the day, Banashankari temple, five kilometres from Badami, is worth the detour on the way out. · Badami to Hubballi · Private car