Vani Vilasa Sagara (Mari Kanive Dam)

A Dravidian Vijayanagara-era Shiva temple on the bank of the Vedavathi at Hiriyur, known for its ornate wooden temple car (teru) and its annual car festival — the heritage anchor of the town.

Jogimatti is the forested hill landscape south of Chitradurga, with views across the rocky plateau and a wider wildlife sanctuary. It is a separate daylight road outing whose permitted access must be confirmed before leaving town.

Adumalleshwara combines a Shiva cave shrine and Nandi spring with a separately managed mini-zoo on the Jogimatti side of Chitradurga. Plan for two kinds of visit—worship and a zoo circuit—with their own entry rules and a retained road transfer.

An open-air monolithic Ganapati at Holalkere, a large rock-cut Ganesha established in the 15th century by the local Nayaka — an unusual "bayalu" (open-field) shrine venerated across the region.

An archaeological valley between three hills ~4 km from the fort where Satavahana, Maurya, Roman and Chinese coins have been found, with the subterranean Ankali Mutt cave-monastery, the Bhairaveshwara shrine and Chandravalli lake — one of the older excavated settlement sites of Karnataka.

The marquee monument of the district — the "Kallina Kote" or Elu Suttina Kote, a vast seven-walled hill fort on granite outcrops, held by the Chitradurga Nayakas and later Hyder Ali, with temples, granaries, water tanks and the legendary Onake Obavva rock cleft within.

The narrow rock cleft in the Chitradurga fort where, in the 1770s, the woman Obavva is said to have single-handedly held off Hyder Ali’s soldiers with only an onake (pestle) as they tried to slip through one by one — a celebrated episode of Kannada valour, marked within the fort.

The great Jagadguru Murugharajendra Brihanmath of Chitradurga, a 17th-century Lingayat monastery and one of the most influential mathas of central Karnataka, with the adjoining Muruga Vana — a sculpture garden and green retreat.

The Taralabalu Jagadguru Brihanmath at Sirigere, a Lingayat monastery tracing to the 12th-century saint Marulasiddha, now the head of a wide network of schools and colleges across Karnataka — a living centre of Veerashaiva learning.

A major pilgrimage shrine at Nayakanahatti in Challakere taluk around the 15th–16th-century sage Thipperudra Swamy, whose samadhi draws large crowds at the Phalguna fair — with the associated Olamatha and Ekanatha maths nearby.