If you are staying at badami, then you can take local bus to pattadakal. It will drop you exactly at the entrance. The monuments,temples in the compound are in good condition and you will find it easy to check it out at your leisure, since the touristy crowd is not heavy on any day.You can also get lot of information from the ticketing staff, you can tip them 10/- or 20/- for information. Now if you are on budget and travelling on local transport , then pattadakal to aihole will be a bit challenging , since last bus from aihole to pattadakal is at 4 pm. Also you won't be able to see aihole on foot, considering a walk through several small lanes . So we hired an auto for to-fro and visit to all monuments at aihole. Since not much information is available on net for local travel, I am posting the auto fellow number( yes he was ok with it) 9916253820 - saddam , he charged us 300-400 for the entire sight seeing from pattadakal to aihole and back. Overall pattadakal will take half day and aihole another half.
Group of Monuments at Pattadakallu forms a part of the two UNESCO world heritage sights in Karnataka (the other being Hampi). Aihole and Pattadakallu can both be done keeping Badami as your base. One word of advise would be to dedicate a whole day to Aihole and Pattadakallu and leaving one or two days for Badami separately. There is just so much to see and admire that one should not be in a hurry after coming here. Buses ply back and forth on an hourly basis from Badami bus stop to Pattadakallu group of monuments once an hour. Highly economical if you are a budget traveller (Rs 17/- one way fare). One can also take a sharing rickshaw from Pattadakallu to Aihole as the transport between these two places remains a bit weak. Alternatively once can always arrange for taxi's from the hotels/Badami bus stop. They charge about Rs 700-1000/- for covering Aihole and Pattadakal in day together.Again highly recommended to hire a guide at the entrance of Pattadakallu temple complex. They charged me about 250/- which was well worth it and take you through a fantastic deep dive on the historic monuments here. Do carry a bottle of water. There are quite a few shops selling refreshments outside the temple complex but this area remains largely non touristy (which is a good thing)! Well worth the effort to come this far as the sights are richly rewarding.I call this place a Little Anghor Wat in India (sans the mighty trees and the sheer scale) :-)
Its worth the drive from Mumbai. It belongs to the Chalukyan era. The best time to go is December, summer may be very hot. Get a guide to go along with you for proper explanation of the temples.
It is an amazing experience to stands here and gasp in wonder of the marvels that our ancestors created and made. If you are a history buff and wonder how people of certain eras lived their daily lives and how kings lived, what their homes looked like, than this place would interest you. Good job by Archaeological Survey of India on restoration. Pretty clean and neat places.
Historically Pattadakal was a place where kings used get coronation done. This was considered to be holy place then.Pattadakal has a large number of temples besides the Malaprabha river. Around the temples are open field. View from the complex are awesome and make many photographic moment. Pattadakal has a group of temples that are well maintained by ASI. It would take 3 to 4 hours to see all the temples in this place. Please make sure to carry food to eat otherwise you will end up eating at the road side food.
Pattadakal is one of the 2 World Heritage sites in Karnataka and lives up to the tag. The complex comprises of around 8 temples of the Chalukyan period with Virupaksha and Mallikarjuna temples being the biggest and most interesting. Virupaksha temple is a fully functioning temple (remove footwear before you enter) and has some of the most stunning sculptures both inside on pillars as well as on surrounding walls and Mukha Mantapa. It's best if you arm yourself with the ASI booklet on Pattadakal available at the ASI museum in Badami, to fully enjoy and appreciate this. it has all details of the sculptures and other nuggets of information that would make the visit more memorable. This complex is the pinnacle of Chalukyan art and architecture, the various styles of Shikara including North Indian and South Indian are beautiful. The site easily takes half day to do justice. You can combine this with Aihole or Mahakoota for a full day agenda. Do not do all three - Badami, Pattadakal and Aihole - on the same day unless you are severely constrained for time. Approach road from Badami is in bad condition so will take some time, although it's just about 12 km. There aren't too many good eating places around so pack something. There are reasonably well maintained toilets on premises.
If you are staying at Hospet (near Hampi), then you can cover Aihole, Pattadakal and Badami comfortably in a day provided you start early in the morning. These places are located in North Karnataka about 425 km from Bangalore and 130 km from Hospet. As the guides would tell you, Aihole is school level, Badami is high school and Pattadakal is college level architecture. Pattadakal has a courtyard full of a group of monuments from the 8th century mainly. It is a World Heritage site and beautiful to say the least. The temples are built in different styles (Dravidian, Nagara etc). You can click away to photographic glory with the well maintained monuments. Badami has a set of cave temples and a few other temples. They too are worth a visit esp. the 18 armed Nataraja and the lake temple. The entry fee is nominal at all these places. Hiring a guide is strongly recommended. If you are fond of heritage art, then you should also plan a visit to Belur and Halebeedu which (in the guide’s language) boast of University level architecture. In my opinion, these two places are really stupendous. They are about 220 km from Bangalore, in West Karnataka.
A UNESCO World Heritage site located almost in the centre of India - fuses the north Indian and south Indian temple styles in a single complex.
Views exciting people and history. Well worth the drive. No longer is worship happening here but the ruins and the reliefs are beautiful.
Very interesting to see southern temple architecture and northern temple architecture in the same complex. Very beautiful and well preserved. It is a UNESCO Heritage site.