Places to visit in Bangalore, and the order to see them

Bangalore's oldest and biggest market, by the old fort. The ground floor and the lanes round it are piled with jasmine, marigold and roses sold by the kilo for temples and weddings, and there are vegetable, fruit and brass sections behind.

What is left of the fort Kempe Gowda built of mud in 1537 and Hyder Ali rebuilt in stone. A stone gateway with carved arches, a small Ganesha shrine inside and a stretch of wall are all that stand today. The British took it in 1791.

A two-storey palace built almost all of teak, finished in 1791 as Tipu Sultan's summer retreat. Carved wooden pillars and arches hold up balconies that were once painted in bright colours, and the rooms downstairs have a small museum on Tipu and his father Hyder Ali.

A 16th-century temple built round a single granite Nandi, Shiva's bull, about 4.5 m tall and 6 m long, darkened with oil and butter. The Dodda Ganesha temple, with a huge Ganesha covered in butter on some days, is a minute's walk down the road, and Bugle Rock Park is behind them.

A Shiva temple inside a natural cave in Gavipuram, said to go back to the 9th century and enlarged by Kempe Gowda. In the courtyard stand two huge stone discs, the sun and the moon, and on Makar Sankranti in mid-January the setting sun shines through a window onto the lingam inside.

A 240-acre garden laid out by Hyder Ali in 1760 and finished by Tipu Sultan. The glasshouse, built in 1889 like London's Crystal Palace, holds the flower shows in January and August. There are old trees from all over the world, a lake, and the Lalbagh Rock, a 3,000-million-year-old outcrop with one of Kempe Gowda's watch towers on top.

A modern temple behind Kemp Fort mall on Old Airport Road, with a white Shiva statue about 20 m tall seated in front of a painted Mount Kailash, and a large Ganesha beside him. Inside the artificial hill is a walk-through cave of the twelve jyotirlingas.

Hindustan Aeronautics' own museum, beside its old airfield. Outside stand real fighter jets, trainers and helicopters, from the HF-24 Marut to an early Tejas; inside are engines, models and the story of aircraft building in India since 1940.

The granite home of Karnataka's legislature, finished in 1956: a huge domed building in a mix of Indian temple and colonial styles. 'Government work is God's work' is carved over the entrance. The red High Court, Attara Kacheri, faces it across the road.

A 300-acre park in the middle of the city, laid out in 1870, with bamboo groves, old rain trees and lawns. The red Gothic State Central Library (Seshadri Iyer Memorial Hall) and statues of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII stand inside.

A hands-on science museum named after the engineer M. Visvesvaraya, with five floors of working models: engines, electricity, space, the human body, and a full-size Wright Flyer copy. A steam locomotive and an old aircraft stand in the grounds.

Indian art from the 18th century to now in Manikyavelu Mansion, an old colonial house, and a new wing behind it. Raja Ravi Varma, Amrita Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy and the Bengal School hang here, and the garden has a quiet cafe.

The Mysore Wadiyar family's Bangalore home, built from 1878 to look like Windsor Castle, with turrets, battlements and ivy. Inside are the durbar hall, carved wooden ceilings, old hunting trophies and family portraits. The family still owns it.

One of the largest ISKCON temples in the world, opened in 1997 on Hare Krishna Hill in Rajajinagar. A gold-plated flagpost and tower top a temple of glass and stone to Radha and Krishna. The way up and down runs past chanting, stalls and the prasadam hall.

Bangalore's old shopping street since British days, a narrow road of clothes, shoes, silver, saris and street stalls. The lanes off it (Ebrahim Sahib and Kamaraj Road) hold the cheaper shops. MG Road and Brigade Road are a few minutes south.

An old hill fort 1,478 m high, about 60 km north of the city, where Tipu Sultan had a summer retreat. On clear winter mornings you stand above a sea of cloud. At the top are the Yoga Nandeeshwara temple, Tipu's Drop (a 600 m cliff), the old fort walls and gardens.

A temple complex at the foot of Nandi Hills, begun in the 9th century and added to by the Cholas, Hoysalas and Vijayanagara kings. Two shrines stand side by side, for Shiva as a young man and as a married god, with carved black stone pillars and a big stepped tank, the Shringi Teertha.

A 34 m steel bust of Shiva as Adiyogi, the first yogi, unveiled by the Isha Foundation in 2023, a copy of the one near Coimbatore. It stands in open ground below the hills, with the Naga shrine and a small temple beside it.

An oval stone fort round the old town of Devanahalli, rebuilt by Hyder Ali in the 18th century, with twelve round bastions. Tipu Sultan was born here in 1750; a small stone memorial in a garden marks the spot. The Venugopalaswamy temple stands inside the walls.

A zoo, a butterfly park and a bus safari through lion, tiger, bear and herbivore enclosures, at the edge of Bannerghatta National Park, about 22 km south of the centre. It takes half a day, more with the safari.

Bangalore's first basilica, a Gothic church of 1882 with a 50 m spire and stained glass, in the crowded streets of Shivajinagar. Its feast on 8 September draws thousands.

A banyan tree about 400 years old, 28 km west of the city off the Mysuru road, whose hanging roots have grown into a small forest of trunks over about 3 acres. The main trunk died long ago; the tree lives on through its roots.