Take a road trip from Bangalore to Pondicherry
If you are planning to go on a drive to Pondicherry from Bangalore; this is for you. Pondicherry now known as Puducherry is one of the best destination to travel and explore all through the year. What you can expect in this blog?
- Route Overview and suggestion
- Pit stops for food on the way
- Places to explore along the way (Vellore Fort, temple etc.,)
Whether you are a solo traveller, a group of friends or a couple seeking to relax by the beach, try out adventure sports, surfing, experience French cuisine and / or get lost amongst nature then Pondicherry is the perfect destination for you. Wandering along the streets of Pondicherry will make you wonder if you are in France or India. Till date you will be able to notice strong french influence be it in the architecture or food all around the city. Pondicherry definitely has something for everyone…
Here is a vlog of the road trip, do checkout our channel.
Route preview:
There are multiple routes that you can take from Bangalore to Pondicherry. NH77 via Tiruvannamalai is the shortest route however the two lane roads and some construction on this route slows us down particularly during peak traffic hours.
The route we took and I would recommend is NH44/NH48, hassle free 6 lane highway till Vellore and lots of food options all through the way. It was around 380 Kms and took us 6 1/2 hours of drive time to reach pondicherry. Here is a preview of the route we took:
Bangalore — Hosur — Krishnagiri — Vellore — Arani — Gingee — Tindivanam — Pondicherry
We started our journey by 6 AM in the morning to beat the city traffic. We were travelling from Majestic (Bangalore west) area and within an hour and 15 minutes we were able to reach Hosur toll (Zuzuvadi toll). It’s always advisable to leave early so that you can avoid city traffic.
Around 8:15 AM we reached Krishnagiri and we made our first pit stop for food at Madurai Idli Shop, which is at 2 kms before Krishnagiri toll. On weekends you might face 5 to 10 minutes wait time, there is a sweet and snack shop at the entrance so while you wait you can browse through their shop. Try out their podi idli, onion uttapam (onion dosa) and kuzhipanniyaram (paddu). They serve it hot on banana leaf with 4 different chutneys it is definitely a must try restaurant for authentic tamil breakfast. As an added advantage, they have huge parking space and clean restroom.
We continued our journey on NH44, in around 7 kilometres we took a left turn and joined NH 48 highway. On the way to Pondicherry, we wanted to explore some places in Vellore. First we visited Vellore fort, the entire fort with a circumference of 3 kms is surrounded by water. Fort was built in mid 16th century during Vijaynagar dynasty and this is a fine specimen of military architecture. Fort is open between 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM, there is no entry fee and for car parking it is Rs. 50. You can climb the fort wall and walk all around the circumference of the wall, it was beautiful but only thing that saddened me was to see so much littering around the corners. Let’s be responsible travellers and stop LITTERING…
There are also various religious monuments within the fort walls, of which we explored Jalakandeswarar temple. This temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is a fine example of Vijaynagar architecture. Intricate carvings on the temple tower, huge wooden doors, pillared halls surrounded by water makes this temple a must visit to enjoy the architecture and feel the calmness in this serene environment.
Another place to explore in Vellore if you have some extra time is the famous golden temple. After visiting Vellore Fort we continued our journey and at Arcot we made a deviation to go towards Gingee. The only time we faced traffic was while crossing the Vellore city. If you are looking for a coffee break then I would recommend stopping at A2B in Arcot because after this there are not many good restaurant options for the reminder 150 kms.
After Vellore till Pondicherry it is a mix of two lane or four lane highway. The roads were so good and there was hardly any traffic, so it continued to be a smooth ride. Here are some photos of the road:
One other recommendation is to visit Gingee fort and if you manage to reach the top of the fort before 3 PM, then the guards will allow you to even climb a small hill and get a beautiful panoramic view of the town.
Here we are, we reached Pondicherry at 1:30 PM, perfect on time for lunch.. Pondicherry is famous for it’s cafe’s, so we wasted no time and headed straight to one of the cafe in White town. Hope Cafe was filled with beautiful graffiti and art work all around, it was not only aesthetically unique and pleasing, the food was very tasty and was kind of a perfect end for our road trip.
Do leave a comment about your road trip experience to Pondicherry and hope you enjoyed my blog, I will be sharing a lot more of our experience on Pondicherry, stay tuned..
Don’t forget to subscribe to our vlog channel and view our Pondicherry playlist
You can even follow us on Instagram here @gauthamdn @sasiworld
