Places to Visit in Central Bengaluru

A 300-acre landscaped green lung in the city centre, laid out in 1870, ringed by the red-brick Attara Kacheri (High Court), State Central Library and Government Museum.

Karnataka's monumental granite state legislature building, completed in 1956 in a Neo-Dravidian style; floodlit on Sunday evenings and viewed from outside.

A Tudor-revival palace built in 1878 by the Wodeyar royal family, with fortified towers, arches and interiors of Wodeyar-era portraits and furniture.

An ornate two-storey teak palace completed in 1791 for Tipu Sultan, richly carved and painted, now an ASI-protected monument beside the KR Market fort area.

A large hilltop Krishna-Balaram temple at Rajajinagar, one of the biggest ISKCON temples in the world, known for its gopuram, glass-and-gold shrine and multimedia halls.

One of the largest and oldest lakes in the city, in the Ulsoor (Halasuru) neighbourhood near MG Road, dotted with small islands and offering boating, a lakeside promenade and a Ganesha temple on its bank.

A hands-on science and technology museum on Kasturba Road beside Cubbon Park, opened in 1965 in memory of engineer-statesman Sir M. Visvesvaraya, with interactive galleries on engines, electronics and space and a full-scale Wright Flyer replica.

India's first aerospace museum, opened in 2001 by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited near the old HAL airport, displaying vintage fighter aircraft, helicopters, aero-engines, a flight simulator and the story of Indian aviation.

A sky-theatre and science centre at the High Grounds run by the Bangalore Association for Science Education, with domed astronomy shows, a science park of interactive exhibits and a public telescope programme.

A scenic man-made lake created in 1882 by Colonel Richard Sankey between Malleswaram and Sadashivanagar, ringed by a popular walking and jogging track, with boating and plentiful water birds.

The Krishna Rajendra Market (City Market), the largest and oldest wholesale market in the old city — a teeming bazaar of flowers, fruit, produce and wholesale goods beside the Jamia Masjid and Tipu’s fort area.

A century-old shopping street in the Shivajinagar / Tasker Town area, one of Bengaluru’s oldest and busiest retail districts, packed with clothing, footwear, jewellery and street-food stalls.

The oldest temple in the city, a Chola-era Shiva shrine in Ulsoor greatly expanded under the Vijayanagara-era chief Kempe Gowda, with an ornate gopuram, a pillared kalyana mantapa and finely carved Yali pillars.

A leading visual-arts complex and art college on Kumara Krupa Road, with galleries of Mysore traditional paintings, folk and tribal art, Nicholas Roerich’s Himalayan works and contemporary Indian art; host of the annual Chitra Santhe street art fair.

One of the oldest museums in India, established in 1865 on Kasturba Road beside Cubbon Park, with archaeology, coins, sculpture and inscriptions, sharing its compound with the Venkatappa Art Gallery and the technology museum.

The Bengaluru branch of the National Gallery of Modern Art, in the restored early-20th-century Manikyavelu Mansion on Palace Road, with a permanent collection of modern Indian art and rotating exhibitions in landscaped grounds.

An unusual teaching museum inside the Human Brain Bank at NIMHANS on Hosur Road, displaying preserved human brains and neurological specimens; a guided, educational stop popular with students and the curious.

The surviving Delhi Gate and bastions of the old fort founded in mud by Kempe Gowda in 1537 and rebuilt in stone by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, beside the KR Market; scene of the 1791 British siege, and a natural pairing with Tipu’s Summer Palace.

A late-17th-century temple to Venkataramana (Vishnu) built by the Wodeyars beside Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace and the old fort, in a Vijayanagara-Dravidian style with carved pillars and a gopuram.

The oldest church in Bengaluru and one of the few minor basilicas in India, a Gothic-style Catholic church in Shivajinagar with stained glass and a tall spire, famed for the September St Mary’s Feast procession that draws huge crowds.

A British-era Anglican cathedral of 1808 on MG Road, in a neo-classical style modelled on St Paul’s Cathedral in London, with a domed sanctuary, stained glass and a quiet churchyard in the heart of the city.

A large 1894 reservoir on the Arkavathi river about 25 km north-west of the city, once one of Bengaluru’s main water sources, now known for its birdlife and open grasslands; water levels vary sharply by season.

A large public park in Gandhi Nagar on the site of the old Central Jail where freedom fighters were held; some jail structures are preserved, and it is now a green space and the city’s main venue for protests and public events.

One of the largest and oldest mosques of the Bengaluru Cantonment, in the Shivajinagar / Tasker Town area near Commercial Street, with a colonnaded prayer hall and slender minarets.