Ooty & Mysuru — Across Bandipur to the Nilgiris

South-west from Bangalore, with Srirangapatna as the break — an island in the Kaveri that was Tipu Sultan's capital until 1799, and still holds his summer palace with its painted walls and the Gumbaz where he is buried. Into Mysuru by mid-afternoon, in time for Devaraja Market at its busiest and the palace exterior before the light goes. On a Sunday the illumination runs at seven and is worth arranging the day around.

The palace at opening — Durbar Hall, the marriage pavilion under its stained glass, the armoury — and Chamundi Hill afterwards if the morning is holding. Then south, and this is the drive the itinerary is built around: through Gundlupet into Bandipur, across the state line into Mudumalai, and up the Kalhatti or Gudalur ghat to Ooty. Two tiger reserves in succession, with elephant, gaur and chital regularly on the verges in the late afternoon. Traffic is restricted through the reserve at night, so the crossing is made before dusk.

Doddabetta at 2,637 m before the haze, then the Botanical Gardens on the way back into town. The middle of the day goes down to Coonoor on the toy train where seats allow — a rack railway from 1899 that takes an hour to cover what the road does in thirty minutes, which is exactly the point. A tea estate and factory in the afternoon, and Sim's Park or Lamb's Rock if the light lasts. The car meets you at each end so the railway leg never strands the day.

Out by the Mettupalayam ghat, the thirty-six-hairpin descent that drops from the downs into tea and then into the plains in under two hours. Coimbatore's airport and railway station are both a short run beyond it, so a midday departure is comfortable and an early afternoon one is easy. If the flight is late, Coonoor's Dolphin's Nose or the tea museum fills the first part of the morning before the descent.