Gateway of India

Mumbai (मुंबई ) 

      The ‘Gateway of India’ it is most certainly a prominent memorial building built up during the period of the British Raj reining in in Mumbai , India . Over that period Mumbai was named as Bombay . Gateway of India monument is placed on the waterfront in the Apollo Bunder locality , Southern part of Mumbai urban area and overlooks the Arabian Sea.

       This old structure is a hard rock arch , twenty six meters high ( eighty five feet high ) . It has been situated right at the end of Chhatrapati Shivaji Road at the water’s edge in the harbor of Bombay . Once it was actually a crude jetty widely-used by the fishing regional community . British governors as well as well known people afterwards redesigned it and adopted as a landing . In olden days , ‘Gateway of India’ would have been the primary structure that every noticed by visitors coming in by ferry in Mumbai city.

The Gateway of India has also been known as the Taj Mahal of Mumbai , and is the city’s one of the top tourist attraction.

      This soaring, 250-foot high clock tower combines Gothic and early French-style architectures. The reason why that you need to be visiting this place would be to see the English architecture adorning this oldest clock in the complete city and that’s what attracts the section that comes here to understand the spot but apart from that there’s not much that you do around here while there is no entrance to the clock tower and all you might do around the spot is to capture the spot in your lens and move around watching the adjacent university and its grounds and that’s the extent of what you certainly can do here. This famous tourist attraction is 1km away from Gateway of India.

Naneghat (Marathi: नाणेघाट)

Naneghat (Marathi: नाणेघाट) is a mountain pass in the Western Ghats range near Junnar in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. During the reign of the Satavahana (200 BCE–190 CE), the pass was extensively used as a trade route between Kalyan and Junnar. Literally, the name nane means "coin" and ghat means "pass". The name is given because this path was used as a tollbooth to collect toll from traders crossing the hills.

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We had planned to visit NaneGhat via the jungle route before Malshej Ghat though we missed the sign and decided to carry on by car. The sign can be easily missed though it has been placed near the road with warning of wild animals in the forest.

We first visited the Barvi Dam Built on Barvi river in Badlapur,Ulhasnagar Tal. of Thane District. It is used for drinking water supply. Height of Dam 38.10 meters. Length of Dam - 750 meters. Submergence Area 2629 ha. Huge Dam supplies water to adjoining MIDCs and townhips and to Navi Mumbai (New Bombay). Access restricted, while one can go quite close to the dam, the dam itself is not open to the public.

We hit Malshej Ghat quite late in the evening it was raining heavily so decided to stop for the night at MTDC or any resort with available accommodation though most of them are
always full in the raining seasons and have to be booked in advance so after convincing a
Dhaba Guy we spent the night on his huge balcony in Junnar which is small village after Malshej Ghat.

In the Morning we headed to Shivneri fort which is on the way to Malshej Ghat

Shivneri Fort is a historic military fortification located near Junnar. It is the birthplace of Shivaji.

Shahaji, Shivaji's father, was a general in the army of the Adil Shah, Sultan of Bijapur. He was concerned for the safety of his wife Jijabai during her pregnancy as there was constant warfare going on. He therefore moved his family to Shivneri fort. Shivneri is a highly defensible location, with steep rocks on four sides and a strongly-built citadel.

Shivaji was born at the fort on 19 February 1630, and spent his childhood there. Inside the fort is a small temple dedicated to the goddess Shivai Devi, after whom Shivaji was named.

There are statues of Jijabai and young Shivaji. At the centre of the fort is a water pond which is called 'Badami Talav'. To the South of 'Badami Talav' are the statues Jijabai and a young Shivaji. In the fort there are two water springs, namely Ganga-Jamumna, which have water throughout the whole year. Two kilometers away from this fort there are the Lenyadri caves which is one of Ashtavinayaka temple in Maharastra.

After visiting Shivneri fort we headed straight to NaneGhat the road is in extremely poor condition from here on potholes are aligned one after another car moves hardly at any speed there is absolutely no road in some places after good 30 km of such road we finally reached Naneghat.

We spent some time visiting the cave and dropping a coin in the stone toll box you can spend the night at the cave many trekkers can be found in the cave and there are some locals who cook up a meal if you need one. Though the place is very cold at nights and floor is wet so carry good gear to spend the night at the cave we ahead back to Malshej this time we took a detour which bypasses Junnar.

Malshej was at its best in the Monsoon you can enjoy all the 3 seasons in one day at Malshej. It goes from Sunny - Cold - Raining in no time there are hundreds of waterfall
adjoined the ghat were a lot of people are picnicking. MTDC resort has the best location
to stay.

Shivneri Fort

Shivneri Fort

 Chatrapati Shivaji's Maharaj father, was a general in the army of the Adil Shah, Sultan of Bijapur. He was concerned for the safety of his wife Jijabai during her pregnancy as there was constant warfare going on. He therefore moved his family to Shivneri fort. Shivneri is a highly defensible location, with steep rocks on four sides and a strongly built citadel.

Chhatrapati Shivaji was born at the fort on 19 February 1630, and spent his childhood there.he got his name SHIVBA here. Inside the fort is a small temple dedicated to the goddess Shivai Devi, after whom Shivaji was named.

There are statues of Jijabai and young Shivaji. At the centre of the fort is a water pond which is called 'Badami Talav'. To the South of 'Badami Talav' are the statues Jijabai and a young Shivaji. In the fort there are two water springs, called Ganges and Yamuna, which have water throughout the year. Two kilometers away from this fort there are the Lenyadri caves which is one of Ashtavinayak temple in Maharastra. It has been declared as a protected monument.

There are many gates structures protecting this fort. Mana daravaja ( Gate ) is one of the many gates on shivneri fort