Mysore Palace

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Sunday, July 30

Mysore Palace was only about a half hour drive from the bird sanctuary, and although we encountered some traffic coming into Mysore we reached it fairly quickly.

Mysore Palace was built between 1897 and 1912 by the Wodeyar family as the royal seat of government power (the same Maharajas who built Bangalore Palace). The location is within a fort dating to the 14th century, where the family’s seat of power was periodically demolished and rebuilt through their rule. The current iteration of the Palace was built after its predecessor burned.

A unique aspect of touring the Palace is that you must remove your shoes before entering. The is a courtyard before the entrance has a shoe check, where you can leave your shoes during the tour. Pavement in the afternoon sun is darn hot on your feet when it’s over 90F! Fortunately the walk into the Palace was short, and the rest of the tour indoors.

A second quirk was that we once again encountered the no camera rule, and had to make do with cell phone cameras. Some areas of the Palace we were not allowed to photograph at all.

On a Sunday afternoon the Palace was a streaming river of people, and the only option was to move along with the shuffling flow. The beauty of the Palace draws people from around the world, more than 6 million people annually.

Because of the camera restriction, the pictures that came out were rather hit and miss, so I’ll group them by category rather than tour order.