It was been long time me and wife didn’t visit any new place together. So we decided to go to Mahabaleshwar for weekend.

As I am at new job so I didn’t take holiday on Friday. Instead we started our journey early morning on last Saturday.

At 6:00 AM Sanjay (hire car driver) came to our place and we started our journey at 6:45 AM.

We hired Indica car @ Rs.7.5 per Km.  We headed towards Ghatkopar and then to Vashi, Express Highway. There are two ways to reach Mahabaleshwar from Mumbai.

Either from Goa route that’s via Poladpur and another is via Pune and Vaai. Poladpur way is bit difficult due to ghats and curvier and steep roads. From Pune through Vaai you get straight road and you can enjoy driving on express highway. Both the ways you will almost take the same timing to reach at Mahabaleshwar.

We reach at Mahabaleshwar at around 12:15 PM.

Since I hadn’t booked any Hotel now we started looking for accommodation. First we went to Dreamland Hotel. Hotel was good and rates were ok.

A/C room was available for Rs.2400/- including breakfast, lunch and dinner and tea. Room was quite spacious. Another room was a cottage for Rs.1800/- with food inclusive. Regular rooms were for Rs.1500/- but all were booked.

We thought it was bit costlier so decided to look for another Hotel. Mean time I saw few more local Hotels ranging Rs.250 to 550, but we didn’t like any of the room.

At market place one of the local person who was friend of our car driver shown us the Hotel Panorama.

We both like the room very much. It was clean neat and cool. We took the package of Rs.2400/- for night inclusive Rs.975 food coupons.

Hotels staff service was good and food quality was also at the mark. Saturday we just went in the market and visited Sunset point ie. Mumbai Point.

That was fun filled evening as place was full of people and horse riders. Horse riders were trying the tricks to attract people. They were forcing the poor animals to stand on the two legs. And people were trying to take pictures while sitting on standing horse.

Next day at 10:00 AM we check out the Hotel room and visited several points of Mahabaleshwar. There are 12 points/sites to visit. Normally local taxi took Rs.1200 to show these points. Though climate was cool but sun was at its peak, so we left for Pratapgad.

At 2:00 PM we headed for Pratapgad. Pratapgad is almost 22 Km away from Mahabaleshwar. You must visit this one of the fort of our legendry Shivaji Maharaj.

At Pratapgad we drank coolest drink that’s buttermilk. We loved so much that we repeated our drinks again. Pratapgad also has around 20 points to visit. One of the most must visit place is Buag where you can see a beautiful statue of Shivaji Maharaj.

I salute my God "Shivaji" and remember those words written at base of statue.

"Shivaji was so brave and courageous that he can only be compared with the world winner Alexander the great: Portuguese officer of Goa"

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