Kolhapur (Karvir) is the one of the important city of Maharashtra state which has hisotirc and traditional touch. Seat of Goddess Mahalakshmi and situated on the bank of Panchganga River. Maharani Tarabai formed her Maratha court in this city and the Rajashri Shahu Maharaj also ruled this city, mainly known for his social initiative. Kolhapur is mostly famous for Misal (Maharashtrian dish), Tambda & Pandhara matnacha rassa (Saffron & white meat gravy), Kusti (folkstyle wrestling), leather foot wears (Kolhapuri Chappal), tikhat lal mirchi (Red chilly).
We planned to visit this city for second time in this summer. We started our journey early morning around at 4:30 AM to skip traffic and hot weather. On our entire journey we just took couple of halts. The NH 4 (Mumbai – Bangalore Highway) is very good and all main cities like Pune, Satara have bypasses, so no break to your speed. We entered in Kolhapur at 11:00 AM. When you enter in the city you can see the statue of Maharani Tarabai sitting on horse and sword in hands (Daughter in Law of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj & wife Chatrapati Rajaram).
We directly headed toward the Mahalakshmi temple (Ambabai Temple). Local guys helped out for directions. We parked our car in parking area and then took walk to Temple. We entered in Bhavani Mandap through big old time door. As you enter in Bhavani Mandap you will be greeted by statue Kolhapur Pehlwan (A wrester’s statue). After few steps you can see the temple. May be due to weekend or school vacations, Temple was having long queue. It took around an hour for the darshan to us, we were fortunate that when we entered in temple for darshan it was just Arati time and we attended the Arati. After Darshan we hanged out little bit in Bhavani mandap
Bhavani Mandap has Juna Rajwada (Old Palace) where we can find the statue of Shahu Maharaj. Few stuffed animals kept on dispaly beside statue of Maharaj which are actually hunted by him including a giant bison (who has achieved some spiritual importance considering the amount of saffron spread over it), Panthers, a pair of deer and few others. After that we took walk in Bhavani mandap’s market. Had Peru, Karvandas and lassi and then headed back to our car. Next we headed to Khasbag Kusti ground which is a very famous kusti ground. Ground is very big and can accommodate more than 25,000 spectators. Visit to this maidan during the Kusti will be an unforgettable experience.
Then we headed to Chandrakan Mandhare’s Kala Sangrahalay (Art Gallery) which got skipped from us during our earlier visit to this city. Chandrakant Mandhare is well known actor in Marathi film industry and worked in many superhits films like Sangtey Aika, Shivaji maharaj, Manache Pan. He has got many awards for his work. Besides acting he was also a good in Painting and powder shading. He has kept all his paintings in this art gallery which he donated to Government of Maharashtra.
We skipped New Palace and Rankala Lake this time as we had already visited this last time. It was already 3:00 PM and we still have to go Jyotiba (we heard in Mahalakshmi temple that Jyotiba also has long queue) and then for stay Panhala. We left the Kolhapur and headed towards Jyotiba
