Guide to 24 Hours in Mysore
How to spend the best 24 hours in Mysore
Mysore is jam-packed with sights to take in. We visited not knowing much about the city and discovered some unforgettable places. Mysore is a more developed city in India, with great transport (including Uber), so muddling our way through was easy! This post will share how to best spend 24 hours in this modern, colourful city.
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Also read: Guide to 24 hours in Kochi
Where to Stay
The Mansion 1907 – This accommodation was very different to any other hostel we'd stayed in before! As the name suggests, the mansion was built as a big residence for a well known businessman in 1907. The property has been renovated with a modern touch but still with lots of the original architecture too. There's lots of space to socialise, a kitchen if you fancy cooking your own meal, spacious dorms and a really cool personal touch is the amazing artwork from previous guests! We stayed in a mixed dorm for Rs.500/ night (£5.40). Click here to book
Breakfast at Mylari
Walking distance from the hostel, you'll find Mylari, the world famous Dosa shop! The cosy 6-table eatery offers up the softest and fluffiest dosas we tried on the whole trip! It's almost a cross between a crumpet and a pancake but with the crispy outside of a dosa. They'll keep the dosa and chutney coming until you stay stop, so keep an eye on your plate because they're so good you'll accidentally end up eating 15!
Mysore Palace
The Mysore Palace is the most popular tourist attraction, and no matter the time it is always busy! It opens pretty late for a tourist attraction (10am) but this is still the quietest time to visit. Jordan HATES crowds, so when we arrived at 10am and saw a queue already we decided to come back later in the day... BIG MISTAKE! We queued in huge crowd of people the entire way round the palace, so our tip is to visit here when it first opens. It'll still be busy, but nowhere near as busy as later on in the day! Entry is Rs. 200 for foreigners and Rs. 40 for nationals.
St. Philomena's Cathedral
About a 20 minute walk from the palace, St. Philomena's Cathedral was our next stop. The beautiful gothic architecture and stain glass windows are a wonderful sight not to be missed! So much quieter then the palace, you can take a seat in the church and ogle at the breathtaking architecture in the quiet - a rarity in India and a big change from the start of the sightseeing tour! You can head down into the crypt which houses a beautiful statue of St. Philomena. There's no entry fee here, making it even more worth your while to visit!
Devaraja Market
Once you've taken a break from the madness of Mysore, prepare to step back in at the Devaraja Market. We could have spent the whole day here alone! Expect lots of colour, noise, smells and fun. It's said there are 700 stalls in this market and it sure as hell feels that way! Its busy rows of stalls sell every kind of Indian veg, flower, herb, spice, jewellery you could think of. Our favourite stall was Adil and Azam where Jordan bought some Indian oil perfume. It's said Calvin Klein came here and bottled up a scent now known as 'eternity', true or not, it's a pretty cool story and I had to buy some because of it. For only Rs. 150 for a small roll-on bottle, I wish I'd bought more! Devaraja Market is like a small authentic slice of India compacted into a 3.67-acre area of madness. Its a paradise for shoppers, foodies and photographers alike! This is still one of the highlights of our trip, so if there's one place you should visit whilst you're in Mysore, it's here!
We hope this helps you with your plans and sightseeing in Mysore. If you can spend more than 24 hours here it'd be well worth it as we definitely missed out on some great things. From here we started our Kerala adventures - our favourite place in the whole of India! If you've enjoyed our whistle-stop tour guide, check out our guide to 24 hours in Kochi, a great next stop after Mysore!
