A good weekend break - Narayanpur & prati-balaji temple

[ulhas.ahirrao]

Last Sunday me and wifey went-off to this place near Pune on our i-10 Sportz.

Narayanpur is off Pune-Satara highway and around 60Km from Pune.

The highway is delight to drive. As it was Sunday there was not much traffic. I was comfortably cruising at 110-120. There are numerous hotels where you can have nice break-fast. We had a sumptuous south breakfast at Hotel Nataraj. This is hotel is an authentic Udapi restaurant serving tasty South Indian dishes. Moving on as you cross Narsapur Phata (from here you can go to Baneshwar which is another good one day spot) you come to ‘Kapurhole’ village. Here turn left (Saswad Road) and this small road takes you to Narayanpur.

Narayanpur has been historically famous for God Datta with only Single Head (God Datta has three heads). This is the only place where single headed God Datta temple is present and hence more worshipped. This Datta Temple is 12 kms from the highway but before (around 10 kms before) that you will come-across the replica of the Tirupati Balaji Temple. Uttara Foods, the manufacturer of Venky's Foods have built this impressive Balaji Temple. The temple gives a good feel of famous south indian temples.

We reached there by 10.30. At that time the Aarati was going on so we were allowed to enter the temple only at 11.15. A army of cleaning staff keeps on cleaning/washing the temple and the premised, keeping it spotless clean. The temple is very well constructed the entire design is been carved out of wood and stone. The Prasadam is tasty too, which you get it for free!

Finished the Darshan, had the Prasadam we moved on to the Datta Temple. Though small the temple was good. The Datta Idol was impressive. We spent some time sitting there and relaxing and then started our journey back. We had a nice lunch at the ‘Joshi Wadewale’ just after the toll-booth and reached back home well before 1.30 pm. That ended our small trip to this nice place, a good quick break from the maddening rat-race both of us do for 6 days of the week!

[MX6]

The best time to go to the temple is early in the morning. Way back in 2004 / 2005 I used to go there at 5:30 am and literally open the doors. Now it's damn crowded and it's catching on the reputation of the crowd as well from the original Tirupati.
I like the older route (through saswad) more than the e-way to this place. Anyone trying out this temple, I'd suggest them to drive out from pune at 4:30 am and be the first to have darshan.

[ASHISHPALLOD]

@ulhas,
no pics.

ideally, i would have planned this trip as

1] in the morning @ 9 am, after crossing new katraj tunnel, i will visit baneshwar first. after spending 1/2 hour

2] i will move to ketkawale[ balaji temple] and will spend 1 to 1.5 hour .
will leave that place @ 12/ 12:30 noon toward narayanpur.

3] at naraynpur, after taking darshan, i will have yummy misal in the nearby eateries or open the packed lunch box under nearby tree.
will spend there @ 1.5 hour max.

4] after that, i will lead my car on purander fort. you can take the vehicle on the hill where purander fort is located.
[ MSL height of purander fort is more than mahabaleshwar].

5] if possible, i will trek this fort and will finish it within 2 hours max.[ you can get good view of rajgad, torna, malhargad and sinhgad fort from this fort].
will start from that fort at @ 5 pm toward saswad.

6] from saswad, i will move toward pune via BOPDEV ghat. the route is scenic.[ regular route is dive ghat via hadpsar]
will stop at the top of ghat for panoramic view of pune city in the evening light.
if time permits, i will visit the kanifnath temple with little detour while reaching to ghat.

7] will cross the steep ghat and reach to katraj[ via undri] or directly to camp via kondhawa..

8] after good one day picnic, i will visit a restaurant for dinner before going to home.

thats it.

[ulhas.ahirrao]

ideally, i would have planned this trip as

1] in the morning @ 9 am, after crossing new katraj tunnel, i will visit baneshwar first. after spending 1/2 hour

2] i will move to katkawale[ balaji temple] and will spend 1 to 1.5 hour .
will leave that place @ 12/ 12:30 noon toward narayanpur.

3] at naraynpur, after taking darshan, i will have yummy misal in the nearby eateries or open the packed lunch box under nearby tree.
will spend there @ 1.5 hour max.

4] after that, i will lead my car on purander fort. you can take the vehicle on the hill where purender fort is located.

5] if possible, i will trek this fort and will finish it within 2 hours max. will start from that fort at @ 5 pm toward saswad.

6] from saswad, i will move toward pune via BOPDEV ghat. the route is scenic.
will stop at the top of ghat for panoramic view of pune city in the evening light.
if time permits, i will visit the kanifnath temple with little detour while reaching to ghat.

7] will cross the steep ghat and reach to katraj.

8] after good one day picnic, i will visit a restaurant for dinner before going to home.

thats it.

Thanks for the suggestion, but we had already gone to Baneshwar etc. plus wanted to get back before evening!

[AvonA7]

While browsing through Team-BHP came across this thread and went to the Balaji temple & Baneshwar temple last saturday, couldn't visit Datta temple, shall visit some other weekends.

A short but nice destination, hadapsar - swargate - nh4 - kapurhol - nasrapur - back to pune ==> total distance up/dn 109km, total toll tax (return) - 90/-.

Balaji temple was nice, not so much crowd, well managed, lots of parking place.

Baneshwar seems to be an old temple - strange but noticed the silver tortoise infront of the shivalinga (and some live too in the pond).

Again lots of parking place, a children park and many school students were playing there. A nice picnic place with many families spending some good time in the park adjacent to the temple, nursery is also there.

A 5mins walk from the temple and one can see the river (not sure about the name)

How is Bhatgar Dam (ahead of kapurhol on nh4), anybody any idea? Interested in knowing some more places around Pune where can go and spend a day and come back in the eve.

Some pics :