Pune

Shivaji spent his boyhood in Pune, and a century later the Peshwas — hereditary prime ministers who became the real power of the Maratha empire — made it their capital. Bajirao I began Shaniwar Wada in 1730; for nearly ninety years decisions made inside its walls reached from the Deccan to Delhi. A fire in 1828 gutted the palace, and what survives is the fortified shell, its gates still studded against elephants.

The British took the city in 1817 and made it a cantonment and monsoon capital. Then came the colleges, the reformers and the printing presses: Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule opened a school for girls here in 1848; Tilak ran his newspapers from here. That habit of argument and education has never left — Pune still calls itself the Oxford of the East, and nobody stops it.

The city's god is Ganesh. Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati, the gold-adorned idol in the old city, draws queues at all hours, and during Ganeshotsav — which Tilak turned into a public festival in the 1890s — Pune becomes ten days of pandals, dhol-tasha drumming troupes and processions. The Aga Khan Palace across the river is quieter: Gandhi, Kasturba and Mahadev Desai were held here from 1942, and both Kasturba and Desai died within its walls.

Pune eats with opinions. Misal pav is breakfast, argued over by neighbourhood. Puran poli comes with ghee, pithla with bhakri, and bakarwadi — crisp, spiced and faintly sweet — is what every visitor is sent home with. In December the Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav, founded by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, brings several nights of Hindustani classical music that crowds sit through till dawn.

Leave for Sinhagad by five-thirty and walk up rather than driving; you will reach the top with the light, and the stalls there serve pithla bhakri and matka curd to a crowd of hungry walkers. Give the Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum more time than you planned — one man's collection of lamps, locks and nutcrackers is the best museum in the city. Old Pune shopkeepers famously close for an afternoon nap, so shop early. And during Ganeshotsav, do the immersion day only if you love crowds.

The Sahyadri forts around Pune are memorials to Shivaji for many Maharashtrians; treat them as such, keep the music off and carry your rubbish back down. Prefer clay Ganesh idols if you join the festival — plaster ones choke the rivers. And in the old Peths, the wadas are homes; look up at the carved balconies from the street.

Lonavala is an hour or so west on the road to Mumbai: the Karla and Bhaja Buddhist caves, the forts of Lohagad and Visapur, and Sahyadri cliffs that come alive in the monsoon.