A long day .. but a good one !!

Hi,

Today we set off at an unGodly hour (6am) for a day out in Mysore. We stopped off for breakfast along the way and our first visit was to the Summer Palace. This is where the rulers of Mysore came to spend the summer as it has more shade and is cooler than the city. The building is 50/50 granite and wood and still has many elaborate painted walls and ceilings. The ceilings patterns were painted onto paper and stuck to wooden planks to form the ceilings. There are no internal photos as you're not allowed to photograph inside. We had a local guide called Madan who told us the story behind it. It was built in 1792 by Tipu Sultan to commorate his victory over the British in the 2nd war of Mysore. The upper hand didn't last very long however and he was defeated twice after that by the British, first in 1792 in the 3rd battle of Mysore and again in 1799 in the 4th battle. This one, the 4th Battle of Mysore, was won by Arthur Wellesley, who went on (under Nelson) to defeat Napolean at Waterloo in 1812. There's an interesting story ab0out his defeat in the 3rd battle. His penalty, for having lost the war was to pay a sum of 33 million lac rupees (that's 33 million x 100,000 rupees) to the British. He didn't have this and couldn't pay, so he had to surrender 2 of his sons until he could pay. It took him 2 years to pay the sum and he did then get his 2 sons back !

When we left the summer Palace we stopped briefly at Saint Philomena's Catholic Church. It was built by the 24th ruler of Mysore, who also build Mosques and temples .. so he was very enumencial indeed ! It's a really beautiful fully functioning church. There's must be a school housed with it, as the children were just coming out of school. Many greeted us in excellent English.

After Saint Philomena's, we dropped by a wood factory and a silk factory, where we saw wonderful furniture being made and also some sandlewood carvings. I was delighted to see beautiful pink granite on the stairs of the silk fatory, the same as the granite chunks we've been using for the foundations ! It definitely looks much better on the stairs !

After another lovely lunch (the highlight was Indian ice cream, but since the Indian flag is the same colours as as the Irish tricolour, we claimed it as an early Saint Patrick's celebration !), we set off for the Royal Palace of Mysore. This is a hugely impressive structure (main picture above). I don't know the size, but it has 96,000 light bulbs ! Again, we couldn't take internal photos, so only exterior shots and the gardens, and the temple in the grounds.

We had a tour of about 90 mins around the Palace. It's very impressive and what you'd expect a real palace to look like, lots of gold, very ornate, a mixture of Indian, Islam and Muslim architecture. Interestingly, all of the stained glass and many of the chandeliers came from Glasgow ! and there are also many gifts from various countries around the world. The kings chair, the Howdah, is on display. It weighs 270 kilos and 80 kg of these are solid gold. There is a also a magnificent Silver door depicting the 10 incarnations of Ganesh .. it's fantastic.

Another interesting fact for us was that the palace architect was an Irishman, Henry Irvine, who was also the architect for Saint Philomena's, above. No wonder we felt at home !!

When we left the palace, we headed off to the magnificent Brindavan Gardens. This is huge area of very impressive water features and gardens. The was a lights and music show and after this we had a wonderful dinner in the on site hotel, the very beautiful and traditional Royal Orchid.

At about 9.30 we headed back to the hotel .. after a long and tiring day. The journey back was a bit slower than coming out because it was dark and we arrived back at about 1.40 am exhausted !!!

A great day nevertheless and we're very glad of a rest day tomorrow.

Bye for now,

Kate