Where to Stay in Belur: 4 Hotels, Ranked

The state tourism corporation's hotel on Temple Road, five minutes' walk from the Chennakeshava compound — which is the whole argument for it, because the temple is at its best in the first hour after it opens and the last before it closes, and staying here means you can do both. Fourteen rooms including a suite, air-conditioned and not, two dormitories, a restaurant and a bar. Hassan district's 2018 hotel list put it at ₹1,200 to ₹1,500; treat that as an indication. Book through KSTDC direct.

The state tourism corporation's own hotel, standing directly opposite the Yagachi dam about 3.5 km north of the temple on the Chikkamagaluru road. KSTDC runs it as a budget unit with a restaurant, and the point of it is the water: the rooms face the dam, and Belur, Halebidu, Hassan and the Chikkamagaluru coffee country are all inside an easy drive. Book through KSTDC rather than a travel agent — it is a government corporation and it sells its own rooms.

A twenty-room lodge on K.G. Road, 825 m and roughly ten minutes' walk from the temple gate, with parking inside its own compound and a restaurant on site. It is one of only four Belur properties that Hassan district's official hotel list carries; that list — compiled in 2018, so read the money as an indication and not a quote — put its rooms in the ₹400 to ₹1,500 band. Rooms are plain, air-conditioned and not.

A small lodge on the Belur Road side of town, 606 m from the temple gate — about seven minutes on foot, which puts it inside the walk-to-the-temple ring along with the two Mayura units and Sumukha. It does not appear on Hassan district's official hotel list and has no site of its own that we could verify, so ring ahead rather than arriving on the strength of this entry.