I'd like to ask some advice here specifically about Bengaluru...
I note the suggested hotels above.
We are in BLR for 4 nights. There is the Taj near the airport and the West End one is near the centre of the city and very different! (Looks fabulous!)
As we will be joining day tours and wanting to see the parks and get out of town to some of the rural areas by car, the airport Taj does not seem practical as it is apparently an hour out of town.
So - from your experience...
1. Do day tour companies pick up from the hotels? My wife is 85 and well agile but the less self transport the better.
2. Is there a better hotel for being near Cubbon Park and/or other central sightseeing locations?
3. Do the two Taj hotels have some transport shuttle between them? We may well stay at the airport the night before the departure so an easy way to get between the two would be helpful.
Thanks!
Hi
@PaulyB - I've not been up to Bengaluru for a few years, with work travel drying up for me during the pandemic, but I visited the garden city nearly 30 times over the decade preceding that, staying all over town as my team there moved between office locations. One thing I can assure you of is that there is no quick way to get between two places in Bengaluru, or much of India more broadly (I also visited Hyderabad a bit), and trips of a couple of kms can sometimes take 30-45 mins, depending on the time of day or how good your driver is. That said - plan on staying where you need to be next, or allow for a lot of time to get between places, if that's not possible.
I can't answer all your questions, as I've not done the tourist thing specifically. I've always had my own car and driver on visits, who the hotel or office would arrange for me for each day. This was not expensive by Australian standards (maybe $40-50 a day), and meant you always have someone waiting with a clean and comfortable (or better) car to take you to the next destination or back to the hotel or airport when ready. I'm not aware of any hotels offering shuttles between properties (they'd be stuck on the road too often), but they can all arrange for car services, whether one-way, return or by the hour or day.
On hotels, I used to move between properties during the working week and free weekends on my stays, depending on what I was planning to do with my time (like finding good brew pubs and places to sample craft beer - something which is surprisingly well done in Bengaluru!), and so I've probably stayed at 30 or more different hotels there; mostly in the city, but also east of town and around Whitefield, where there is a concentration of well established technology & business parks. I also toured other properties there as my role involved negotiating corporate rates with hotels and airlines for global travel at the company.
My budget was pretty much unlimited for India at that time, so the options I'll refer to here might not make as much sense these days... but the
JW Marriott Bengaluru is your best hotel for Cubbon Park (just walk over the crossing on the corner), and is also next door to
UB City, which is a high-end mall with some good restaurants & bars on the rooftop level. My favourite option, however, which is also not too far away and and possibly the best hotel in Bengaluru had to be
The Oberoi Bengaluru, on MG Road. It's an old world hotel with lots of modern features, and a true oasis amidst the chaos of a major Indian city. The hard product, service, quality of food and beverage are all incredible. Other hotels in the area that I'd recommend include the newer
Ritz Carlton Bangalore on Residency Rd (which has a great rooftop bar) and the
ITC Gardenia Bengaluru (part of Marriott's Luxury Collection), which is is where the Aussie cricket team stay, or at least used to
If you were looking to stay in the East (edit to add: east of the city, in the suburbs where many business parks are), the
Sheraton Grand Bengaluru Whitefield was the best I found, and
Vivanta by Taj Whitefield also very good. The Vivanta has a fantastic Northern Indian restaurant in it called
Terracotta, and actually the Vivanta by Taj on Residency Rd back in the city has an oustanding Southern Indian restaurant out the back in a traditional setting called
Karavalli - never a bad meal or experience had in either venue.
If you've got any particular hotels or other things around town that you're interested in, I might be able to help with [slightly dated] advice - just let me know, here.
Cheers,
Matt.
