Surrounding Satara... Sajjangad, Thoseghar on Day 1

Satara is a town at around 100km south from Pune blessed with natural beauty. In 17th century, it was the capital of Maratha Empire.

The name of this town has been derived from the seven mountains surrounding the place implying ‘Sat’ (seven) and ‘Tara’ (hills) e.g. Ajinkyatara, Sajjangad, Yawateshwar, Jarandeshwar, Nakdicha Dongar, Kitlicha Dongar, and Pedhyacha Bhairoba.

Anyways, the trip is about the places surrounding Satara instead of the city itself. Satara is surrounded with some spectacular places such as Sajjangad Fort, Thoseghar Waterfall, Kaas, Bamnoli, Tapola etc.

It was a long awaited plan since I have seen photographs of Kaas and Thoseghar. So, we started early morning on Pune- Bangalore Highway.

Pune - Banglore Highway

Katraj Tunnel

The journey itself was spectacular; green surroundings, dark tunnels, windmill over the hills, flowers on the roadside fields... just everything you expect on a highway ride.

We reached Satara at around 11.00am, checked into hotel, freshen up, had lunch and started for Sajjangad fort. We saw quite a few Sunflower field on the way.

Sajjangad  is the place of spiritual importance to most Hindu and especially Maharashtrian Families as it is a final resting place of Sant Ramdas, the spiritual Guru of Shri Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Sajjangad, Previously known as Parali, it was renamed to Sajjangad after Shivaji Maharaj gifted it to Sant Ramdas to set up his permanent monastery.

The fort is around 15 km from Satara. There's a small village, named Parali, at the base of the fort.

Sajjangad Entrance

Sajjangad blessed with fantastic landscapes all around with Urmodi dam on the right side. The top of fort holds few temples (Manglai Mandir, Sri Ram Mandir, Maruti Mandir etc.), few shops selling books, materials to worship God etc and various kinds of flowers.

Urmodi Dam

Ram Mandir

Manglai Mata Temple

After taking lots and lots of photographs, we moved for Thoseghar. Thoseghar is 10km from Sajjangad and 25 km from Satara.

Thoseghar, consisting of three waterfalls, counted in the highest waterfalls in India. These Waterfalls are creates a loud noise in the calm nature surrounded by high hills and deep forest. There are various small waterfalls here which are about 15-20 meters high and one of around 500 meters high.

Thoseghar

Panorama- view of three waterfalls at once

As the evening arrives, clouds arrives and makes it darker... A typical characteristics of monsoon in Western Ghats. We had one more place to see, so we headed towards Chalkewadi village.

Chalkewadi is famous for wind energy farm. It's 10 km from Thoseghar towards Satara. One can go very closely and feel the giganticness of a windmill and hear the smooth noise of the rotating blades.  In the monsoon, the area is covered with fog and mist as you can see in the photos.

Windmills at Chalkewadi

View of Sajjangad on the way back

We get back to city in the late evening, had some tiffin and went to a place called Char Bhinti to have a night view of Satara.

Char Bhinti or Hutatma Smarak is a monument created in remembrance of the great warriors of freedom fight of 1857, situated in the heart of city and on the way to Ajinkyatara Fort. Char Bhinti was constructed on completion of hundred years to the first freedom fight against British. It gets renovated by Satara Municipal Co-operation in 2001.

Satara from Char Bhinti

Char Bhinti

Despite being a whole day trip, surprisingly, we were still fresh. We went to Radhika cinema to watch Barfi, indeed a good movie. The show stops in the midnight and we lost in the dark road of Satara. After, 2-3 rounds of the town area we finally found our hotel and drop us onto the bed.