The Bangalore tour by metro begins at the entrance of Vidhan Soudha metro station at 8 am where your cultural guide will be waiting.

Vidhan Soudha is the starting point and one of the most imposing public buildings in South India. Built entirely of granite and porphyry and rising to 46 metres, this 300 room building houses 22 departments of Karnataka’s state government and dominates the skyline of central Bangalore with its four domed towers. Your guide explains the political and architectural ambition behind a building deliberately designed to project the confidence of a newly independent Indian state.

Cubbon Park surrounds Vidhan Soudha and the walk through it is one of the most pleasant stretches of the Bangalore tour by metro. Established in 1870, this 300 acre park in the heart of the city is lined with magnificent trees, statues of towering historical figures and some of Bangalore’s finest colonial buildings. Attara Kacheri, the Gothic building commissioned by Tipu Sultan in 1867 to house 18 departments of revenue and today serving as Karnataka’s High Court, is the architectural highlight of the park walk.

The Someshwara Temple is one of the oldest buildings in Bangalore, its original structure dating back to the Chola period nearly a thousand years ago. The sanctum, vestibule and pillared hall follow the architectural grammar of early medieval South Indian temple building, and the sculptures from Indian mythology that cover the walls are extraordinary in their detail and their age. Your guide explains what the Chola dynasty was, why their builders came to Bangalore, and what these stones tell us about the city that existed here before Kempe Gowda or Hyder Ali or the British arrived.

The ISKCON temple on the hilltop in Rajajinagar is the most visually overwhelming stop on the tour, a riot of colour, sound, marble and devotion built by a movement founded by a single elderly Indian scholar who arrived in New York in 1966 with seven dollars in his pocket and went on to establish 550 centres across the world. Your guide explains the philosophy of bhakti yoga and the extraordinary global story behind a temple that draws tens of thousands of visitors every week.

Lalbagh Botanical Garden is the afternoon destination, 240 acres of living horticultural heritage containing more than 1,800 species of plants and a geological rock formation estimated at over 3,000 million years old. Hyder Ali planted the first trees here in 1760. His son Tipu Sultan expanded it. The British added the glasshouse modelled on the Crystal Palace. Today it is the lungs of Bangalore and one of the finest botanical gardens in Asia.

The Bull Temple of Basavanagudi is the final stop, built by Kempe Gowda in the 16th century and home to a monolithic Nandi idol 4.5 metres tall and 6.5 metres long, carved from a single block of granite. According to local belief, a small iron plate fixed to the bull’s forehead prevents it from continuing to grow. The neighbourhood of Basavanagudi around the temple is one of the most atmospheric old quarters in Bangalore, its streets lined with flower sellers and sweet shops that have been here for generations.

The tour ends at Soap Factory metro station at 4 pm.

This Bangalore tour by metro is fully inclusive. We take care of all metro travel throughout the day, your English speaking cultural guide from start to finish, all entry fees and a South Indian vegetarian lunch.