Ramanagara

Ramanagara sits on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, roughly an hour's drive from the city, and packs an unusual mix of things into a small district: weathered granite hills, a centuries-old silk trade, and a small but genuine slice of Bollywood history.

Film buffs may recognise the district's rocky terrain without knowing its name — the boulder-strewn hills around Ramanagara served as the shooting location for "Sholay" (1975), one of Hindi cinema's most iconic films, and the area is still sometimes called "Sholay hills" for it.

The town itself is known as one of India's major silk-producing centres, home to a large silk cocoon market where raw cocoons are traded and auctioned each morning — a genuinely interesting stop if your timing lines up, even for visitors with no particular interest in textiles. The same granite hills that drew the Sholay film crew have since made Ramanagara a popular rock-climbing and bouldering spot for climbers from Bangalore, while Ramadevara Betta, one of the hills in the region, is a protected sanctuary for long-billed vultures — a rare sight this close to a major city.

Beyond the town, the district's temples and river-side spots — like Sri Kabbalamma Temple and Muthathi on the Kaveri — make it an easy base for a full day of exploring without needing to venture as far as Mysore.