Yagachi Dam

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 queen's temple, immediately south of the main shrine and built at the same time as it: Shantala Devi, Vishnuvardhana's queen, paid for it, and the inscriptions of that century call THIS one Chennakesava and the big one Vijayanarayana — the two names have since traded places. It measures 124 ft by 105 ft and holds two sanctums, one for Venugopala and one for Chennigaraya. The name comes from a kappe, a frog, said to have been found at the image's navel. 234 m on foot from the main steps.

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 small but complete temple west of the main shrine, 70 ft by 56 ft, with a nine-square navaranga and a sanctum, and 59 large reliefs around its outer walls — Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, Bhairava, Lakshmi, Parvati, Saraswati and others, with some panels telling the Bhima story from the Mahabharata. It is 12th-century work like the main temple, and KSTDC's own description of Belur names it alongside Chennakeshava and Chennigaraya as one of the three temples worth the walk.

A 12th-century shrine to Soumyanayaki, a form of Lakshmi, standing south-west of the main temple and enlarged later. It matters more than its size suggests: local tradition holds that its tower is a miniature of the great tower that once rose over the Chennakeshava sanctum and was taken down in the 1800s, so this is the nearest thing to a picture of what has been lost. The temple's own seva list prices abhisheka here separately from the main sanctum.

North-west of the main temple, the Andal shrine — also called the Ranganayaki shrine — was added under the Vijayanagara kings. Its outer wall carries elephants, foliage and 31 large images drawn from the Vaishnava, Shaiva and Shakta traditions together, with finely cut Venugopala, Mohini and Lakshmi panels and friezes of Puranic stories. 229 m from the main steps, and usually much quieter than the temple it stands beside.

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.

The stepped tank in the north-east corner of the Chennakeshava compound, called the kalyani in ordinary speech and Vasudeva-sarovara in the temple's own inscriptions. Ballala II had it cut in 1175 CE, in the same works that added the kitchen and the grain store, and a pair of stone elephants still stands at its edge. It is 136 m from the main temple steps — under two minutes on foot — and it is where the light is best in the last hour of the afternoon.

The dining room attached to Sumukha Residency on Lakshmi Devi Temple Road, 629 m from the temple gate and opposite the government hospital. It is a vegetarian multi-cuisine room — south Indian breakfast, north Indian thalis at midday — and it takes the overflow from the residency's function hall, so it can be busy on wedding dates.

The town's bus stand, 876 m and about ten minutes' walk north-east of the temple gate, and the reason most visitors can do Belur without a car. Karnataka's state buses run from here to Hassan (about 37 km), Halebidu, Chikkamagaluru (about 27 km), Arsikere, Shravanabelagola, Mangaluru and Bengaluru. Wikivoyage's Belur page is blunt that the monuments themselves are awkward to reach on public transport once you are past the town, so plan the Halebidu leg by bus, taxi or the KSTDC day tour rather than on foot.

A vegetarian eating house 214 m from the temple gate, on the shop street between the compound and the bus stand. "Udipi hotel" is Karnataka's own shorthand for a plain-fronted vegetarian place serving idli, dosa, and a rice plate at midday, and this is one of the handful within a three-minute walk of the temple.

The Catholic parish church of Belur, in J. P. Nagar about 860 m west of the temple gate. The Diocese of Chikmagalur's own directory dates the parish to 1982 and puts it at 31 families, with a sub-station at Mathihalli (Tholalu). Mass is at 6:30 am on weekdays and 8:30 am on Sunday in Belur, 7 am at Tholalu. A working parish rather than a monument — come outside service times if you are only looking.

Hotel. Belur Road (SH-112), Attalgere, Belur, Hassan District 573115.

A lassi and juice counter on the shop street that runs from the temple gate towards the bus stand, 180 m from the main steps and the closest cold drink to the compound.

A vegetarian restaurant out on the Hassan road about 1. 7 km north-east of the temple, in the small cluster of eating houses near the bypass junction where the buses and the lorries stop. Too far to walk from the compound in the middle of the day — 2. 3 km on the footway, nearly half an hour — but a straightforward halt if you are driving in or out.

A non-vegetarian eating house on the Hassan road, 2. 4 km from the temple gate and the furthest of the three in that cluster. Worth knowing about precisely because it is not vegetarian: nearly everything within walking distance of the Chennakeshava compound is, and biryani in Belur means coming out this way.

A small eating house in the same roadside cluster as Udupi Grand and Hotel Hamza on the Hassan road, about 1. 7 km from the temple.