Madhurai and Srivilliputhur

                        On 20th of Feb, we both started at 6 in the morning for sanctifying ourselves by the visit of the temple in Madhurai.We had a short break in the middle for breakfast and then proceeded towards our destination without any break again. We reached there by 12.30 and relaxed ourselves for some time in the hotel. Most of the temples in Tamilnadu generally have an afternoon break and will be reopened in the evening time. So at 4PM, we went to temple and it took us around 2 hours to cover the entire temple. The temple is really gigantic and one feels proud to be a part of the country that has got such great architectural skills. The idol of Goddess Meenakshi is seen in dim lighting but we felt lucky to have a peaceful darshan for a considerable time. Even the darshan of Shiva linga, God Sundareshwar, was excellent and heart-filling. The temple has got five entry gates,one in each direction and the 5th being the simhadwara on the east side. One can enter the temple from any side of the above. The beauty of the temple is far out of reach of the camera lens. One has to just drink its glory with eyes. After finishing the mandir visit, we went to the Tirumala nayak Palace. The beauty of the palace can be seen only in the sound and light show organized every evening there in the palace. In that show, the complete story of the king Tirumala nayak is described in a film without picture(only sound and lights). We returned to our hotel with great glimpses to be remembered for ever

                                                                             
                                               The next day too, we started at 6 in the morning to give a visit to the temple in Srivilliputhur. The temple complex here is again very big where one has to get the darshan of Vatapatra sayi and Andal Amman. Here we had the darshan of Lord Vishnu in the middle of the sudardshan Chakra and Lord Yoga Narasimha one on each side of the same idol. The Kova here is very famous so we purchased  that and headed towards Bangalore with a lunch break at Adayar Anand Bhavan on the way. We were back at home by 4.30 in the evening with a long day remaining to relax ourselves after a long drive to a great place.
                               Over all, the roads to reach these places were simply superb and an average driver can go ahead at a constant speed of 120 on the entire stretch.

Great destinations in Bangalore

                 Last week end(12th and 13th Feb), we had visited some interesting places within Bangalore. Our first destination was Dodda Ganapthi followed by Dodda Basavanna. After having great lunch served at MTR,Lalbaugh, we relaxed for some time in the Lal Baugh garden. Then we proceeded to the samadhi of Sri Narayan Maharaj(Who is believed to be the incarnation of Lord Dattatreya) located at about a KM distance from the bull temple. Exactly opposite to that is located the Architectural miracle-Gavi Gangadhreswara temple.

                                             

This temple seems like a cave and the specialty of the temple is that the rays of the sun directly touch the idol of Shiva only on the day of Makara Sankranti passing amidst the Nandi's horns. One has to pass through a cave like part to get the complete darshan of the idols in the temple.

                                          
Our next stop of the day was at Ramakrishna Mutt where we had purchased many valuable books. 

                    Our next day trip was to the Kotilingeswara temple near Bangarpet. Here is the huge Shiva linga and many lingas(don't know whether the count reaches to 1 crore or not) and the temples of many gods and goddesses in the same complex.

                                               
From here the Golden Venkateswara temple was around 6 KM which was worth visiting. Here one has to have the darshan of the lord through a window of 6 passages believed to be the Arishdvargas. Here the temple is on a small hill and even the temple of Padmavathi Ammavaru is also on a hill opposite to this. The view from top the hillock was too good.
                 Thus we had a weekend in the city waiting for the next to be out of city.