The Time-Turner Series || City of Hidden Treasures - Pune


We decided to stop at Pune for a few days on our way back from the Four Seasons Vineyard at Baramati. Till then the impression that I had of Pune was of a tiny, quaint city with pretty houses, all built around a huge Kayani bakery, which, in my imagination, wasn't much different from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

Reached this huge campus of Four Seasons Vineyard in Baramati region of Maharashtra. Above photograph shows the view of vineyard from reception area. Not sure if you would be able to figure out the gate on other end which shows the boundry of this 55 acres vineyard. Different types of grapes were hanging all around the place with exotic name tags around the boundaries. After having a quick sight of the place, we headed for refreshing welcome drink at reception. It was time to head towards our rooms and gear up for lot of exciting activities.Lunch was arranged at the vineyard and Chef Hitesh Gautam had come from Hyatt Banglore to Baramati to meet the bloggers & help them understand the wine-food pairing. He introduced us to different types of Indian preparations and did appropriate wine pairing for us. Dining sessions with appropriate wines was one of the exciting things during this visit and I personally loved the way Chef Hitesh put his best efforts in making things rock every time. Probably I would share a separate post on the food served with various Four Seasons wines during lunch and dinner at the vineyard.Here is the gang of Delhi and Banglore Bloggers with Mr Bala. Chef Hitesh Gautam is there on left image, who offered great food-wine pairings during the lunch. And Mr. Datta on right image, who served us all the wines while Mr. Bala was explaining us about various Four Seasons wines. Apart from Four Seasons, we also tried 'Ritu' wines during the lunch. After some rest, we headed to understand the 5 step wine making process. Grapes are harvested and brought to the winery. Some grapes are grown in this campus and lot of material is brought from other farms as well. Next step is to sort these grapes and pass through crushing machine to get juice which is transferred to these huge stainless steel tanks for fermentation. After fermentation process, wine is stabilized and then filtered.This filtered wine is transferred to barrels for maturation, but not every wine is put in barrels for maturation and also the quality of barrels varies for different kind of wines. Finally this wine is bottled and distributed to the customers through various channels. This is a very top level overview of the way wine is made. But there is a long process to be followed to produce good wine and that's what we understood from this visit. Each of these stages of creating wine have various quality assurance steps.The huge fermentation tanks you see in above photographs are temperature controlled. Pneumatic Press machine is used for crushing wine grapes. Supposedly this machine is considered as one of the best machines to handle grapes in gentle way, in absence of oxygen to maintain the quality. During these conversations Mr Raghu clarified lot of our confusions about wine. The way wine bottles should be put, why/why-not, type of wines, the way they should be consumed etc.All the barrels at Four Seasons Winery are imported from France. These are made up of oak, which is considered as best wood to make barrels for wine-making. It seems that maturing & aging of wine in oak barrels smoothen out the tannins. During the visit, Mr Raghu also shared various facts about different types or barrels and difference between barrels used for whiskey & wine. Wine is kept in these barrels for long durations and duration varies from one type of wine to the other. Throughout the process, wine is monitored on regular basis to ensure that things are going in right way. With time, quality team also figures out that some of the barrels are doing pretty good, which are used for premium wines later and some needed to be discarded as well. On regular basis, wine is taken from these barrels and tested in lab for acidity & other relevant parameters to ensure that it's maturing in the way team wants it to be.Bottling unit in this wineyard is also used for Golconda premium. When we entered into the bottling hall, Golconda was being bottled & labeled. This bottling unit is imported from Italy and has a capacity of bottling 2500 bottles in an hour. It's fully automated. At each stage, people ensure that each bottle is properly cleaned, filled, closed or labelled. If there is some problem, bottle is removed form the queue. Apart from that few bottles go to the lab to check that cap/cork is appropriately put on top of bottle. There are some standards to ensure the pressure. Idea is not to have them loose or very tight on wine bottles. During this whole session of understanding wine making process, we tried 6-7 more types of wines - some from barrels with 4-5 year old wine, few from fermentation tanks & grape juice. Personally I hated the grape juice and wine from fermented tanks. One of the old Shiraz wine was amazing. This was first time when I was really able to appreciate the aroma of a wine. This one had subtle aromas of oak wood with decent smoothness. Also acidity was perfect for me to consume. I was about to ask if I can have a bottle from that barrel, but stopped my emotions :) . At the end Raghu told us that more wine will be served with bar-b-Que and especially the sparking wines :) .. It was the time, when we already had 12-14 glasses of different types of wines. Of-course, some of them were kept aside after few sips.After a brief tour of the winery, we took an extended tour of the property. This Vineyard has 10 rooms and 4 suites, all of them beautifully done and give a feel that you are living in a Vineyard. There is a huge palace like complex in the vineyard which has all these rooms and there are plans to expand the capacity so that larger groups can also come and enjoy the experience to spend time in a vineyard. Apart from that, this vineyard has a swimming pool, party deck with lawns,  terrace and a spa which is not yet functional.In this winery, wines are made from grapes grown in Sahyadri valley of Maharashtra State in India. This Four Seasons Winery is located at ~65 kilometers from Pune and ~30 kilometers from Baramati. There is a multistory tower in this complex which gives amazing views of the vineyard and forest area behind it. In this tower, plans are to make a sports room on one floor, Library with wine lounge on another floor and some exciting plans under discussion with hospitality partners, who were there at the property when we visited. In long run, idea is to open this place for tourists to come and have an unmatchable experience.During night, this campus looks awesome. I should admit that I could not do justice to the beauty of the place and I also have series of excuses ready with me :) . Anyways, I will not discuss them here but want to share the fact that night photographs are shot by using a plastic table as tripod :). I forgot take my tripod with me.These series of fountains in front of Four Seasons Winery look amazing and at the same time, I wish that grass would have been maintained in better way :) . These lawns are looking worse in the photographs and that's one of the main reason that I have included very few of the shots I took around these fountains. This was the time when everyone was enjoying high tea on the front balcony of main restaurant. Few of the bloggers had stepped down to meet two attention seeking dogs in this vineyardSoon after we headed towards the swimming pool and lawn areas around it. It was getting windy, so we had to grab some warm cloths before hitting the next venue for enjoying wine with snacks served by Chef Hitesh Gautam. All the snacks were served on terrace gardens by the pool with live music performance. I thoroughy enjoyed the performances. Different wines accompanied us during this evening but Shiraz was the one that was there with me till 1:00 am. It was great to interact with Chef during the evening and know more about him & his profession. The beautiful evening ended with empty glasses all around and most of us were excited about morning walk in the grape farms with different varieties of grapes growing. We also planned to visit the forest on back side because Mr. Bala had shown us some photographs of forest having dears and hyenas.Next day started for us at 7am and as per plan, we were late. So first we walked around the grape farms having different varieties like - Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz etc. Apart from these various other types of grapes are used to produce Four Seasons wine at this Winery. These include - Viognier, Merlot, Zinfadel, Sauvignon Blanc.These grapes were not very photogenic, but as we moved we came across some decent sized Zinfadel grapes. Finally we ended up spending lot of time than what we had planned, but it was all worth. We had fun in grape farms. We tasted few of them but believe me, none of them tasted like what we consume in our routine life. It seems these particular grapes are more acidic and of-course they were not ready to consume yet.Four Seasons has a good range of wines including -  Merlot, Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier, Sauignon Blanc & Blush. My personal favorite is Four Seasons Chiraz which has a ruby-red classic shade with it's unique blend of violets & raspberries infused with spice & smoky character. Shiraz makes it an ideal accomplishment to Indian cuisine, particulary tandoori meats and biryani. It's always fun to have Shiraz with friends over bar-be-que. We also tried 'Ritu' wines which is an award winning international brand. 'Ritu' is a hindi word which means 'Season'.India’s most experienced wine maker Abhay Kewadkar joined us on last day. After having lunch with Mr Kewadkar, we moved our journey back to Pune. It was time to rewind the Vineyard memories during 2 hours drive with other bloggers. When we thought again about these two days, everything looked very hectic but it was all worth it. It was a great opportunity to learn, a special experience to stay in a Vineyard and lot more. I am sure that it would be one of the special experiences of 2014 for me.  Thanks to Four Seasons Team for wonderful stay at the Vineyard and to all the bloggers for great company.To know more about the Four Seasons Vineyard in Baramati, check out - http://www.fourseasonsvineyards.com/


What I definitely didn't expect was a city like any other city - traffic, high-rise buildings, independent houses giving way to apartments, MG Road, malls etc. We only stayed there for a couple of days, so I definitely cannot say that I understand the city now. But I can definitely say that I do feel like going back and exploring the place for a few days. I am sure the city won't disappoint.

After our Baramati visit, we came back to pune and had 3 days in hand. It was amazing to know about plenty of weekend destinations around Pune, but it made difficult for us to decide on 1-2 of the destinations we could plan for. A day trip to Lonavala & Khandala was something that we planned on day one. This Photo Journey shares more about this one-day road-trip to Lonavala & Khandala from Pune.When we were deciding one-day destinations around Pune, we had a very long list and with time, it was getting difficult to decide. We hadn't enough time to go through blogs and decide the best options as per our taste of travel. Lonavala was most familiar name in the list and it was easily approachable through Pune-Mumbai highway. So we chose to drive to Lonavala and explore this part of Maharashtra state. So picked car of our cousin, who stays there in Pune and moved towards Lonavala. We started from Pune and followed Pune-Mumbai highway till the point which tells you to take left for Lonavala. Above photograph shows the exact point where we took this left to hit Lonavala.Just taking this left from the highway, we stopped at one of the shops to know what exactly is there in Lonavala and where should we go now :). I know that it sounds odd that we were not even sure that what we would be doing in Lonavala. Somehow we had no clue till we talked to the shopkeeper. And the response from other side way - 'There is hardly anything in Lonavala, especially in the month of Feb, During Monsoons you can see hundreds of waterfalls all around the hills of Lonavala'. This was quite disappointing and after a short chit-chat, we were wondering if we should spend more time around this town or drive towards Mumbai. After a quick thought we thought of going towards the hilly part of Lonavala which was 20 kilometers from main town. After few kilometers of drive, we reached on top of hills which were looking beautiful from Pune-Mumbai highway. These hills of Lonavala was quite different with hundreds of marks of waterfalls, which were inactive during winters.Soon after we hit a picnic spot called Tiger-Point, which was a typical point which are marketed very well in most of the tourist destinations :There was a huge parking space on roadside, with few stalls around the corners, camels and few other things to keep tourists engaged. We also thought of parking and see what's there. Various groups were sitting around the other side of this parking lot. As we moved towards these groups, we realized that other side of this hill had huge valley full of different elevations making beautiful formations. This was one of the views from Tiger-point around these hills in Lonavala. Although I am not sure if this part is also considered in Lonavala or not. These views were breathtaking and I had never seen something like this.Tiger's Point is a cliff-top with a sudden drop of over 700 meters giving an amazing view of relatively lower hills spread over a huge area around Lonavala. It seems that buses for Tiger and Lion points are available to this place from Lonavala town. I also noticed few Auto-Rickshaws coming to this place from main town. It seems that during Monsoons, the view from Tiger's point is phenomenal with lot of waterfalls. During monsoons, tourists prefer to sit around these waterfalls instead of Bushy dam which comes on the way to Tiger point from Lonavala Town. The place around Bushy dam didn't seem that exciting so we skipped stopping there. One needs to park the car on road-side and need to walks for few minutes to hit Bushy Dam. Just next to Tiger Point, there is another point called Lion point. I didn't understand of point of these two different tourist spots nearby and didn't even bother to figure out. The only thing on my mind was the location on other side of this hills, the amazing views of gorges all around.  After spending some time around these hills, we planned to drive towards Ambey Valley, which is 20 kilometers away from Tiger Point. When we asked folks at Tiger Point, they described Ambey Valley as a place where you can find big houses and villas of all Bollywood actors and big personalities of India. Since we had some time in hand, we thought of driving till Sahara City in Ambey Valley. I will be sharing a separate Photo Journey from Ambey Valley, which is a city developed by Sahara and has a private Airport as well. Lonavala is a town and a hill station is part of Pune district only. It takes around 1.5 hrs to reach Lonavala from Pune. It is located around 55 kilometers from Pimple Saudagar part of Pune city. and Mumbai from here is around 90 kilometers away.Lonavala is known for its production of the hard candy known as chikki and Chocolate fudge. It's one of the major stations on the rail line connecting Mumbai and Pune. Both the Mumbai-Pune Expressway as well as the Mumbai-Chennai highway pass through Lonavla. We explored both these highways and opted for the other route while going back.Having tea while travelling is a very special experience and a short conversation with Tea-stal owners makes it special. You get to know a lot about the place, culture and local things. We had few cups of tea and some maggie at this shop which is located around a Shiva temple which comes on the way from Lonavala to Ambey Valley in Maharshtra. The Journey of our day didn't end here. After a quick drive to Ambey Valley, we moved back to Loanavala Town and then Khandala. I shall be sharing the next part of the Journey in upcoming post

Even during our short stay, the city had started unveiling its secrets to us. With Western Ghats in its backyard, the city is a traveller's delight. One can easily drive to hill stations such as Lonavala, Khandala, Mahabaleshwar. You can get Chikki and Fudge on the way from Lonavala and big juicy strawberries from Mahabaleshwar. And if you happen to visit during the monsoons, which we didn't, I have heard the landscapes can take your breath away. But that is beyond the scope of a time-turner post. Let us return to the lingering memories of the city.

After our Baramati visit, we came back to pune and had 3 days in hand. It was amazing to know about plenty of weekend destinations around Pune, but it made difficult for us to decide on 1-2 of the destinations we could plan for. A day trip to Lonavala & Khandala was something that we planned on day one. This Photo Journey shares more about this one-day road-trip to Lonavala & Khandala from Pune.When we were deciding one-day destinations around Pune, we had a very long list and with time, it was getting difficult to decide. We hadn't enough time to go through blogs and decide the best options as per our taste of travel. Lonavala was most familiar name in the list and it was easily approachable through Pune-Mumbai highway. So we chose to drive to Lonavala and explore this part of Maharashtra state. So picked car of our cousin, who stays there in Pune and moved towards Lonavala. We started from Pune and followed Pune-Mumbai highway till the point which tells you to take left for Lonavala. Above photograph shows the exact point where we took this left to hit Lonavala.Just taking this left from the highway, we stopped at one of the shops to know what exactly is there in Lonavala and where should we go now :). I know that it sounds odd that we were not even sure that what we would be doing in Lonavala. Somehow we had no clue till we talked to the shopkeeper. And the response from other side way - 'There is hardly anything in Lonavala, especially in the month of Feb, During Monsoons you can see hundreds of waterfalls all around the hills of Lonavala'. This was quite disappointing and after a short chit-chat, we were wondering if we should spend more time around this town or drive towards Mumbai. After a quick thought we thought of going towards the hilly part of Lonavala which was 20 kilometers from main town. After few kilometers of drive, we reached on top of hills which were looking beautiful from Pune-Mumbai highway. These hills of Lonavala was quite different with hundreds of marks of waterfalls, which were inactive during winters.Soon after we hit a picnic spot called Tiger-Point, which was a typical point which are marketed very well in most of the tourist destinations :There was a huge parking space on roadside, with few stalls around the corners, camels and few other things to keep tourists engaged. We also thought of parking and see what's there. Various groups were sitting around the other side of this parking lot. As we moved towards these groups, we realized that other side of this hill had huge valley full of different elevations making beautiful formations. This was one of the views from Tiger-point around these hills in Lonavala. Although I am not sure if this part is also considered in Lonavala or not. These views were breathtaking and I had never seen something like this.Tiger's Point is a cliff-top with a sudden drop of over 700 meters giving an amazing view of relatively lower hills spread over a huge area around Lonavala. It seems that buses for Tiger and Lion points are available to this place from Lonavala town. I also noticed few Auto-Rickshaws coming to this place from main town. It seems that during Monsoons, the view from Tiger's point is phenomenal with lot of waterfalls. During monsoons, tourists prefer to sit around these waterfalls instead of Bushy dam which comes on the way to Tiger point from Lonavala Town. The place around Bushy dam didn't seem that exciting so we skipped stopping there. One needs to park the car on road-side and need to walks for few minutes to hit Bushy Dam. Just next to Tiger Point, there is another point called Lion point. I didn't understand of point of these two different tourist spots nearby and didn't even bother to figure out. The only thing on my mind was the location on other side of this hills, the amazing views of gorges all around.  After spending some time around these hills, we planned to drive towards Ambey Valley, which is 20 kilometers away from Tiger Point. When we asked folks at Tiger Point, they described Ambey Valley as a place where you can find big houses and villas of all Bollywood actors and big personalities of India. Since we had some time in hand, we thought of driving till Sahara City in Ambey Valley. I will be sharing a separate Photo Journey from Ambey Valley, which is a city developed by Sahara and has a private Airport as well. Lonavala is a town and a hill station is part of Pune district only. It takes around 1.5 hrs to reach Lonavala from Pune. It is located around 55 kilometers from Pimple Saudagar part of Pune city. and Mumbai from here is around 90 kilometers away.Lonavala is known for its production of the hard candy known as chikki and Chocolate fudge. It's one of the major stations on the rail line connecting Mumbai and Pune. Both the Mumbai-Pune Expressway as well as the Mumbai-Chennai highway pass through Lonavla. We explored both these highways and opted for the other route while going back.Having tea while travelling is a very special experience and a short conversation with Tea-stal owners makes it special. You get to know a lot about the place, culture and local things. We had few cups of tea and some maggie at this shop which is located around a Shiva temple which comes on the way from Lonavala to Ambey Valley in Maharshtra. The Journey of our day didn't end here. After a quick drive to Ambey Valley, we moved back to Loanavala Town and then Khandala. I shall be sharing the next part of the Journey in upcoming post

I remember, in particular, that a large part of the city was crowded, with lots of traffic, but the suburbs were peaceful and the apartment complexes were high-rise, but not overwhelmingly so. In general, these areas were green too. We visited the city in the month of February, and the weather was cool and comfortable.

After our Baramati visit, we came back to pune and had 3 days in hand. It was amazing to know about plenty of weekend destinations around Pune, but it made difficult for us to decide on 1-2 of the destinations we could plan for. A day trip to Lonavala & Khandala was something that we planned on day one. This Photo Journey shares more about this one-day road-trip to Lonavala & Khandala from Pune.When we were deciding one-day destinations around Pune, we had a very long list and with time, it was getting difficult to decide. We hadn't enough time to go through blogs and decide the best options as per our taste of travel. Lonavala was most familiar name in the list and it was easily approachable through Pune-Mumbai highway. So we chose to drive to Lonavala and explore this part of Maharashtra state. So picked car of our cousin, who stays there in Pune and moved towards Lonavala. We started from Pune and followed Pune-Mumbai highway till the point which tells you to take left for Lonavala. Above photograph shows the exact point where we took this left to hit Lonavala.Just taking this left from the highway, we stopped at one of the shops to know what exactly is there in Lonavala and where should we go now :). I know that it sounds odd that we were not even sure that what we would be doing in Lonavala. Somehow we had no clue till we talked to the shopkeeper. And the response from other side way - 'There is hardly anything in Lonavala, especially in the month of Feb, During Monsoons you can see hundreds of waterfalls all around the hills of Lonavala'. This was quite disappointing and after a short chit-chat, we were wondering if we should spend more time around this town or drive towards Mumbai. After a quick thought we thought of going towards the hilly part of Lonavala which was 20 kilometers from main town. After few kilometers of drive, we reached on top of hills which were looking beautiful from Pune-Mumbai highway. These hills of Lonavala was quite different with hundreds of marks of waterfalls, which were inactive during winters.Soon after we hit a picnic spot called Tiger-Point, which was a typical point which are marketed very well in most of the tourist destinations :There was a huge parking space on roadside, with few stalls around the corners, camels and few other things to keep tourists engaged. We also thought of parking and see what's there. Various groups were sitting around the other side of this parking lot. As we moved towards these groups, we realized that other side of this hill had huge valley full of different elevations making beautiful formations. This was one of the views from Tiger-point around these hills in Lonavala. Although I am not sure if this part is also considered in Lonavala or not. These views were breathtaking and I had never seen something like this.Tiger's Point is a cliff-top with a sudden drop of over 700 meters giving an amazing view of relatively lower hills spread over a huge area around Lonavala. It seems that buses for Tiger and Lion points are available to this place from Lonavala town. I also noticed few Auto-Rickshaws coming to this place from main town. It seems that during Monsoons, the view from Tiger's point is phenomenal with lot of waterfalls. During monsoons, tourists prefer to sit around these waterfalls instead of Bushy dam which comes on the way to Tiger point from Lonavala Town. The place around Bushy dam didn't seem that exciting so we skipped stopping there. One needs to park the car on road-side and need to walks for few minutes to hit Bushy Dam. Just next to Tiger Point, there is another point called Lion point. I didn't understand of point of these two different tourist spots nearby and didn't even bother to figure out. The only thing on my mind was the location on other side of this hills, the amazing views of gorges all around.  After spending some time around these hills, we planned to drive towards Ambey Valley, which is 20 kilometers away from Tiger Point. When we asked folks at Tiger Point, they described Ambey Valley as a place where you can find big houses and villas of all Bollywood actors and big personalities of India. Since we had some time in hand, we thought of driving till Sahara City in Ambey Valley. I will be sharing a separate Photo Journey from Ambey Valley, which is a city developed by Sahara and has a private Airport as well. Lonavala is a town and a hill station is part of Pune district only. It takes around 1.5 hrs to reach Lonavala from Pune. It is located around 55 kilometers from Pimple Saudagar part of Pune city. and Mumbai from here is around 90 kilometers away.Lonavala is known for its production of the hard candy known as chikki and Chocolate fudge. It's one of the major stations on the rail line connecting Mumbai and Pune. Both the Mumbai-Pune Expressway as well as the Mumbai-Chennai highway pass through Lonavla. We explored both these highways and opted for the other route while going back.Having tea while travelling is a very special experience and a short conversation with Tea-stal owners makes it special. You get to know a lot about the place, culture and local things. We had few cups of tea and some maggie at this shop which is located around a Shiva temple which comes on the way from Lonavala to Ambey Valley in Maharshtra. The Journey of our day didn't end here. After a quick drive to Ambey Valley, we moved back to Loanavala Town and then Khandala. I shall be sharing the next part of the Journey in upcoming post

We drove to Lonavala and back. This was the first time I was driving in the hills so it was a thrilling experience. It wasn't monsoon so the landscapes were desolate, and yet hauntingly beautiful. I remember long stretches with nothing but little shacks serving maggi and tea, with motorbikes and cars parked close by. I remember "tiger point" and "lion point", that offered breathtaking views of the Western Ghats. On our way back, we also briefly visited Khandala, memories of which have more-or-less faded.

Recently we were in Pune for few days and the only agenda was exploring this part of the country. This was my second visit to Maharashtra state and was very excited about the same. After going through different options to explore, we finalized on Lavasa for a day trip. This Photo Journey shares some photographs from India's first planned hill station and some of the interesting facts about it. So join us in this journey to explore something special and different in India.When we were exploring the options around Pune for a day trip or 2 day outing, there were plenty of options contrary to Delhi. All this made our job difficult to finalize places we could explore. Our base was pune and we wanted to make best of each day there. So for one day, we thought of driving to Lavasa from Pune. Above photograph shows the view of Lavasa town in Maharashtra. You see the town something like this after a drive of 55+ kilometers from pune. Road from Pune to Lavasa is average and has some bad patches and has decent hilly terrains. Vibha was driving in hills first time and it was a good experience for her and she thoroughly enjoyed it. I am sure that it was a good learning experience as well.After a long drive from Pune, you hit a hill-top where main gate to Lavasa town is situated. After this gate, things suddenly change. Road becomes neat with sufficient street-lights throughout, colorful flowers surrounding these roads, toilets, places to sit and what not. Above photograph shows the very first view of Lavasa town from entry gate of the town. It's beyond imagination to see such township in the middle of nothing. There are very small villages around this part of the state and hardly any major development. All this makes Lavasa more special. Surprisingly there were security guards on each turn inside the town and there were plenty of turns on these hills. Not sure if these guards are permanently appointed on these location or it was just for that day, because a women car rally was also happening on same day. This rally also started from Pune and ended in Lavasa. All big brands were on this road on same day.This town is located around the lake. These colorful apartments are located on the shoreline and all beautiful villas are strategically located on different parts of the surrounding hills with brilliant views of lake and green hills around Lavasa town. There is enough parking space in the town. Vehicles can be parked on one side of the road and there are proper markings. Apart from these covered/paid parking is also available in different buildings around the lake. Initially we felt very uncomfortable in the town because in other Indian cities, you don't see such discipline culture. It was quite unusual to keep track of all sign-boards in the city and act accordingly.Luxuy of the city was high on our minds and soon after we noticed a chopper roaming around the hills. After a few rounds, it settled on one of the hills. Later we got to know that many of the residents of Lavasa use choppers and private planes to commute to this place from Delhi and other distant town of the country. While going back towards pune, we saw this helipad on the hilltop surrounded by beautiful gardens.After parking our car we climbed down towards the lake. We descended upon the lively promenade and discovered that it was lined with restaurants offering a variety of cuisines. Most of the options are quite expensive and many were also closed. Some of the popular restaurant chains are present here in Lavasa.On regular intervals, a musical fountain keeps entertaining visitors. These are huge and perform dance on music. Suddenly people go to the shoreline as fountain starts and whole environment changes for some time.Lavasa is a private planned city, which is stylistically based on the Italian town Portofino.There are few adventure sport options available in Lavasa, including lakeshore watersports. One can opt for city tour via tourism buses. We also thought of taking bus tour but we couldn't figure out the way to buy tickets. We went to tourism information center and they asked us to visit Town-hall. And we went to town-hall, they directed us to Tourism Information Centre. This weird. So finally we dropped this idea and thought of driving around the place in our car.Lot of resources have been used to ensure that water inside the lake is clean and well preserved.A photograph from Sales office of Lavasa town. We also thought of doing some timepass by looking at the offerings they have in the city. We were really impressed with the options available and the plans of the town. It seems that Lavasa town aims to provide space for .3 million permanent residents. And at the same time offering facilities to take care of 2 million tourists in an year.While in Lavasa, we though that we should have planned a night stay in Lavasa. I am sure that it would be worth to spend whole day and night to experience the hues of nature & the way this town lit up during night. There are some very good options to stay in Lavasa. Apart from hotels, there are options to book service apartments and it seems that service apartments are quite reasonable. In my opinion, these apartments are good options as they are very close to the lake. Some of the villas on hills are also available on rent. So if someone wants to have more peaceful place to stay, these are definitely better options as compared to the apartments. After spending few hours at Lavasa town, we thought of heading back before sunset. We wanted to cross the hilly area before it gets too dark. Water in the lake was shining beautifully under sun. This photograph shows extended part of the lake and it seems that similar city is being developed in this stretch as well.A view of lake from other side. We drove to the opposite side where lot of villas are located. In above photograph you can see roofs of the villas. These villas are located brilliantly with amazing views of the lake and hills. There is lot of green area around this place and I am sure that place would look far better during monsoons. Probably monsoon would beAnother photograph with clear view of Lavasa lake from one of the villas on hill topRoads in proximity of Lavsa town are very well maintained.There is not much to do in Lavsa and if something is available, options are expensive. But it's a highly recommended destination for folks who love to explore something different. Lavasa is unique in India and it's worth a visit. Next time, when I visit Lavasa I will make sure to stay here for a night and leave early in the morning towards konkan beaches. Few more Photo Journeys are planned from Lavsa, so keep looking this space for next few weeks to check out more stuff from this beautiful destination for folks in Pune and Mumbai.

While in the city, we also visited Lavasa. I remember a horde of cars speeding across the hills. A women's rally was culminating in Lavasa that very day, and Lavasa itself was very crowded because of the celebrations. I also remember candy-colored houses and a large, a lake with musical fountain. There were nice restaurants and shops alongside the lake, however, many were yet to open. There were houses around the lake that one could either purchase or rent or book for a few days.

Last year, when we visited Pune, my wife, Vibha, was after everyone’s life to pay a visit to the famous Kayani Bakery. “We need to buy the Shrewsbury biscuits,” came the answer when I asked her why? I had never heard of Shrewsbury biscuits, not even Kayani Bakery, so I couldn’t really understand what was the big deal.  Shrewsbury biscuits were available in other Irani bakeries too, but Vibha was stuck on Kayani Bakery. So we had to make a plan to visit Camp, where Kayani Bakery is situated. But when we reached there, we found out that the bakery is closed on Sunday. And it was Sunday that day. And to top it all, we were leaving for Delhi in the evening.  Vibha was very disappointed. To cheer her up, we took her to another Irani bakery that happened to be open on that day, and we found some Shrewsbury biscuits there. This was a surprise because we had heard that at Kayani Bakery, it is very difficult to get your hands on the Shrewsbury biscuits, because they almost fly out of the wood-fired, brick oven they are baked in. Anyways, we got some packed. Everyone was cheerful again, including Vibha. After all, how different could one Shrewsbury biscuit be from another?  When we reached home and opened the box to look at the biscuits, they looked like standard shortcrust biscuits. Eagerly, we picked up one each and took large bites. And we were disappointed. The biscuits were too sweet and too buttery. We couldn’t finish the box and had to throw many of them. I silently decided that we are never buying any Shrewsbury biscuits again.  But then my cousin visited Delhi this month, and because she was with us when we had gone in search of the legendary Kayani Bakery, she knew how curious Vibha was about Kayani bakery’s Shrewsbury biscuits. So she bought a box with her.  This time when we opened the box, we saw that the name Kayani Bakery was embossed on each biscuit. I was reluctant yet curious whether these biscuits would be any different from the ones we had had earlier. So I took a bite. And these biscuits melted in my mouth. They were just sweet enough and just perfectly short. There was no excess butteriness. On the whole, they were very nice shortcrust biscuits. We understood why Kayani’s stuff was difficult to get while other bakeries almost always have enough stock available.  If you are headed to Pune and specifically to Camp, do visit Kayani Bakery. It is worth tasting these biscuits at least once.

We cannot end this post without mentioning Kayani bakery. The fact is that we happened to reach there on a Sunday, and Kayani Bakery was closed. I was disappointed, because I desperately wanted to try the famous Shrewsbury biscuits. However, another bakery was open, and they too had the Shrewsbury biscuits. We bought some and also got some packed for home. The cookies were good, but nothing great. Later, my cousin bought me a box from Kayani Bakery and we could see the difference. The Shrewsbury biscuits from Kayani bakery were crisp and yet melt-in-the-mouth.

Recently we were in Pune for few days and the only agenda was exploring this part of the country. This was my second visit to Maharashtra state and was very excited about the same. After going through different options to explore, we finalized on Lavasa for a day trip. This Photo Journey shares some photographs from India's first planned hill station and some of the interesting facts about it. So join us in this journey to explore something special and different in India.When we were exploring the options around Pune for a day trip or 2 day outing, there were plenty of options contrary to Delhi. All this made our job difficult to finalize places we could explore. Our base was pune and we wanted to make best of each day there. So for one day, we thought of driving to Lavasa from Pune. Above photograph shows the view of Lavasa town in Maharashtra. You see the town something like this after a drive of 55+ kilometers from pune. Road from Pune to Lavasa is average and has some bad patches and has decent hilly terrains. Vibha was driving in hills first time and it was a good experience for her and she thoroughly enjoyed it. I am sure that it was a good learning experience as well.After a long drive from Pune, you hit a hill-top where main gate to Lavasa town is situated. After this gate, things suddenly change. Road becomes neat with sufficient street-lights throughout, colorful flowers surrounding these roads, toilets, places to sit and what not. Above photograph shows the very first view of Lavasa town from entry gate of the town. It's beyond imagination to see such township in the middle of nothing. There are very small villages around this part of the state and hardly any major development. All this makes Lavasa more special. Surprisingly there were security guards on each turn inside the town and there were plenty of turns on these hills. Not sure if these guards are permanently appointed on these location or it was just for that day, because a women car rally was also happening on same day. This rally also started from Pune and ended in Lavasa. All big brands were on this road on same day.This town is located around the lake. These colorful apartments are located on the shoreline and all beautiful villas are strategically located on different parts of the surrounding hills with brilliant views of lake and green hills around Lavasa town. There is enough parking space in the town. Vehicles can be parked on one side of the road and there are proper markings. Apart from these covered/paid parking is also available in different buildings around the lake. Initially we felt very uncomfortable in the town because in other Indian cities, you don't see such discipline culture. It was quite unusual to keep track of all sign-boards in the city and act accordingly.Luxuy of the city was high on our minds and soon after we noticed a chopper roaming around the hills. After a few rounds, it settled on one of the hills. Later we got to know that many of the residents of Lavasa use choppers and private planes to commute to this place from Delhi and other distant town of the country. While going back towards pune, we saw this helipad on the hilltop surrounded by beautiful gardens.After parking our car we climbed down towards the lake. We descended upon the lively promenade and discovered that it was lined with restaurants offering a variety of cuisines. Most of the options are quite expensive and many were also closed. Some of the popular restaurant chains are present here in Lavasa.On regular intervals, a musical fountain keeps entertaining visitors. These are huge and perform dance on music. Suddenly people go to the shoreline as fountain starts and whole environment changes for some time.Lavasa is a private planned city, which is stylistically based on the Italian town Portofino.There are few adventure sport options available in Lavasa, including lakeshore watersports. One can opt for city tour via tourism buses. We also thought of taking bus tour but we couldn't figure out the way to buy tickets. We went to tourism information center and they asked us to visit Town-hall. And we went to town-hall, they directed us to Tourism Information Centre. This weird. So finally we dropped this idea and thought of driving around the place in our car.Lot of resources have been used to ensure that water inside the lake is clean and well preserved.A photograph from Sales office of Lavasa town. We also thought of doing some timepass by looking at the offerings they have in the city. We were really impressed with the options available and the plans of the town. It seems that Lavasa town aims to provide space for .3 million permanent residents. And at the same time offering facilities to take care of 2 million tourists in an year.While in Lavasa, we though that we should have planned a night stay in Lavasa. I am sure that it would be worth to spend whole day and night to experience the hues of nature & the way this town lit up during night. There are some very good options to stay in Lavasa. Apart from hotels, there are options to book service apartments and it seems that service apartments are quite reasonable. In my opinion, these apartments are good options as they are very close to the lake. Some of the villas on hills are also available on rent. So if someone wants to have more peaceful place to stay, these are definitely better options as compared to the apartments. After spending few hours at Lavasa town, we thought of heading back before sunset. We wanted to cross the hilly area before it gets too dark. Water in the lake was shining beautifully under sun. This photograph shows extended part of the lake and it seems that similar city is being developed in this stretch as well.A view of lake from other side. We drove to the opposite side where lot of villas are located. In above photograph you can see roofs of the villas. These villas are located brilliantly with amazing views of the lake and hills. There is lot of green area around this place and I am sure that place would look far better during monsoons. Probably monsoon would beAnother photograph with clear view of Lavasa lake from one of the villas on hill topRoads in proximity of Lavsa town are very well maintained.There is not much to do in Lavsa and if something is available, options are expensive. But it's a highly recommended destination for folks who love to explore something different. Lavasa is unique in India and it's worth a visit. Next time, when I visit Lavasa I will make sure to stay here for a night and leave early in the morning towards konkan beaches. Few more Photo Journeys are planned from Lavsa, so keep looking this space for next few weeks to check out more stuff from this beautiful destination for folks in Pune and Mumbai.

We had 3 days to explore Pune and at the end of these we wished we had a bit more time. If you really want to explore Pune, you should try to spend at least a week there. Every nook and corner hides a secret that is waiting to be uncovered and one can truly befriend the city only by actually staying in it. 

If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -

- Manage your waste well and don’t litter
- Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
- Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
- Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.

- Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite 

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