Chitradurga Fort

I've visited this fort two times; once alone and once with Praveen and Nagesh. two visits was not enough to see every part of the fort. According to people and history, once upon a time this fort had seven walls around it. Now we can count just three.

Terrain around Chitradurga is typically hilly... boulder strewn hills. The Palegars made good use of the terrain to hide from their enemies. This snake sculpture is on the left side of the gateway to the fort. From here, the path leading to the inside zigzags and climbs up gradually.


Once past the gateway, we come to a open place. This (see below) is supposed to be grinding stones. Probably to grind flour or to extract oil or grind gun powder for canons. As you see, the entire system is in pretty good condition. Very close to this is a pit carved out of stone which it seems was used to be filled with oil.


The fort had every facility it required for its time; water bodies, soldier quarters, stables, palace, temples, graineries... everything.



Plenty of monkeys too.


In the picture below, you can see a track the right hand top side. This path to the top of the hill is very tricky. People start climb it, go up some way and them get stuck. It's pretty steep and dangerous.




One has to spend two or three full days to see every part of the fort and every single moment would be worth. The beauty is that the fort blends into the nature.



That's Nagesh on the top and in the below picture, Praveen and I are one small speck... tiny blue dot.



This is the famous 'Obavvana Kindi', one of the many the secret passages through which one could go out of the fort. We went exploring into the passage; we climbed down rocks into a stream bed which leads the way out into the open field, out of the fort.


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