Mahabaleshwar Reviews

Food, sight-seeing and shopping
Like all tourist places, local sightseeing tours are organized by tourist taxis (either indica or maruti van) and guides. But good thing is that the rate for all tours are fixed and which has to be obeyed by all taxis, though the rates are quite high and displayed at main taxi stand. There are total six different local sightseeing tours 1) Mahabaleshwar ? 1: Duration 2.5 Hours, Rs. 355 2) Mahabaleshwar ? 2: Duration 2.5 Hours, Rs. 355 3) Panchgani Darshan: Duration 2.5 hours, Rs. 425 (additional 200 Rs and 1 hour for Sherbaug) 4) Pratapgarh Darshan: Duration 3 hours, Rs. 560 5) Mini Kashmir (Tapola): Duration 3 hours, Rs. 580 6) Panchgani and Wai Darshan-2: Duration 4 hours, Rs. 610 Though you can find 8-10 points under each tour, the actual point is located in very near area. (Like Arthur Seat, Window Point, Echo point, hunter point, are within 100 mtr area.) There is heavy bargaining on tour. We paid total 1200 Rs for first 3 tours. Most of the tours are not covering Sherbaug in their list, but I found it the most obvious reason to go back to Mahableshwar once again. For budget tourists, MSRTC organized tour charge 70 Rs per person and cover all the points in Mahabaleshwar (not Panchgani) Following points are worth to visit: 1) Arthur Seat (during Mahabaleshwar-1): Spectacular view of Koyna valley. 2) Lodwick point and Elephant head (during Mahabaleshwar-2): both the points are 100 mtr apart, not covered during MSRTC tour. 3) Ket?s point (during Mahabaleshwar-1): Breathtaking view of Krishna valley, near by points are Echo point and needles? hole 4) Table land (during Panchgani Darshan): located in Panchgani. 5) Sherbaug (during Panchgani Darshan): One of the most beautiful place. Botanical garden filled with lots of flora of different varieties in acres of land . Must visit for all nature lovers. Though they claim that it will take around one hour to fully cover Sherbaug, but acoording to me, 3-4 hours are also less. Definitely entrance fee of 100 Rs is worth to pay. Its really almost impossible to describe in words what the place is and what effect it has on you. 6) Veena lake: Most happening place of Mahabaleshwar, boating in paddle boat or rowing boat can be done in one of the most beautiful point at Mahabaleshwar for 100-150 Rs for 30 minutes per boat. Due to time constrain and poor review of Tapola and Prtapgarh fort, we did not visit those two points.

Activities & things to do
Other activities include marketing at main market, where lot of bargaining is possible. Important attractions are wooden articles, caps, shoes apart from other. How can one forget fruit jams, jelly, crushes, for which Mahableshwar is famous since long. Mahabaleshwar trip cannot be completed without taste of fresh strawberry with cream. One can also purchase fresh strawberry from gardens, but if you are buying the same from market, do not forget to bargain.

Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc.
After reaching Pune station by train, in the morning we took MSRTC bus from Swargate for Mahabaleshwar. (There is no train going to Mahableshwar directly) MSRTC bus starts in the morning around 6.00 a.m with quite good frequency. But it is better to get reservation to get seat for 3 hour run. (Bus ticket: 90 Rs per seat) For almost all hotels at Mahableshwar, Check in time is 9.30 a.m. and check out time is 8.00 a.m. so one has to plan their tour accordingly. The atmosphere at Mahableshwar is pleasant and full of greenery; definitely it is heaven for someone, coming from concrete jungle. On the last day, we checked out the hotel in the morning 8.00 a.m. and moved to visit few sightseeing points and catched the MSRTC bus in the afternoon 2.00 pm towards Mumbai. It takes 180 Rs per seat in MSRTC bus and 7 hours to reach Mumbai central. You can also opt for private luxury bus (which also start at 2.00 pm) which takes 400 Rs in so called Volvo A/C bus, but before booking, please confirm whether they are reaching to Mumbai directly (in 7 hours) or via Pune (in 9 hours)