I had a lot of fun in Kolhapur and think it’s an underrated tourist destination. It’s my favorite kind of tourist destination: small, culturally rich, can be covered in a few days without feeling like you’ve missed out on much, interesting history, great architecture, a diverse range of things to see, unique and delicious food, a distinctive and quirky personality, not at all touristy, easy to get around, inexpensive, and modern enough to have some creature comforts despite being pretty small town-ish. It’s a great quick trip from Mumbai (or from Pune or Goa), we did an overnight sleeper bus as it was last minute, but flight tickets (not available daily) are very cheap from Mumbai if you book in advance. We went from Kolhapur to Bijapur followed by Badami and Hampi, an amazing itinerary though you'd need to set aside at least a week to do it. Take a look at more photos from this whole trip in my wife's Instagram stories.
We were there for three nights and four days in February 2023, though we took it very slow as my wife was sick the first day and I was sick the third day, and we had some work to do. It’s small enough that you can knock out all of the major sites in one day, though a more leisurely two days would be ideal, perhaps more if you really want to delve into the food or have some other special interest here.
The weather in early February was pretty good, and though it was hot in the afternoon it was still bearable, better than Mumbai. The pollution was bad, we wore masks most of the time outdoors.
We stayed at the Treebo Balaji Residency for around 1,900 inr a night, budget stay but perfectly fine for those who aren’t too fussy. Clean enough, and the location is perfect for walking around the old city. We considered The Fern which is a level up, but the location was further out than we would have liked. The nicest hotel seems to be the Sayaji, the location isn’t walkable to anything you’d want to see but Kolhapur is small enough that everything is drivable, and you can walk from there to one of the city’s best restaurants (Dehaati). I didn’t see any places to stay that had any character (like a nice heritage hotel or homestay or boutique hotel). The Airbnb options weren’t great for two people, but some of the full houses to rent looked pretty nice and were good deals if going as a group.
My first section is dedicated to sightseeing, followed by food, followed by recommended readings, followed by a short cinema section including some info about Kolhapur’s one-time position as a filmmaking hub.
Stuff to do
There are just a few major sites and they’re all great. The Mahalaxmi temple (which I believe is THE Mahalaxmi Temple) is a must visit even if you (like me) often don’t organize your trips around temples. Usually when I go to big, busy temples like this I only see the outside and don’t bother waiting in line to go inside, but here I accidentally was ushered into the darshan line and had no way of getting out and this ended up being a happy accident. The interiors are stunning and were worth standing barefoot with some guy’s giant rice belly pressed into my back for 20 minutes.
Also excellent is the neighboring Old Palace area which is just as impressive, the main gate (Bhavani Mandap) is magnificent, as is the Rajaram High School (designed by Charles Mant, without going in you can see the exterior from a few vantage points walking around it, and note the old library “vachan mandir” across the street). Within a few minutes of walking you get great Chalukya (the temple), Maratha (the palace), and Indo-Saracenic (the school) architecture. In general this is a nice area to walk around with many nice old buildings and a large produce market. In the palace/temple area you’ll also see the iconic Kolhapuri chappals (and I believe local jewelry, though I didn’t notice).
My favorite of the non-primary sites in this vicinity was Khasbag Maidan which I believe is India’s largest wrestling stadium. Incredibly cool to see, and you get a great view from the gate in an inner lane. Sadly I’m told matches only happen on certain special occasions throughout the year (more on wrestling later, and do check out the training center Motibaug Talim nearby). On the opposite side is an old theater that was advertising upcoming music performances (tribute shows to RD Burman, Lata Mangeshkar, etc). There’s also a lot of good food around here (see more below), and don’t miss the doodh katta!
The other major site is the New Palace (Charles Mant again), which is grand and quirky inside and out. I dare not mention the wonders inside (some of it fairly disturbing for animal lovers), but I will say that there are Italian stained glass depictions of Maratha history and that seems to sum up the whole affair. Possibly among India’s top five palaces outside of Rajasthan, and I should also point out that Kolhapur may be in India’s top five places for public clocks. If you like public clocks, you are in for a treat here.
The last major site in Kolhapur, or the first minor site, is the Town Hall (Mant again, though more restrained), which houses a surprisingly good small museum with a nice range of items, including some locally excavated artifacts from ancient Roman and Greek trade. Across the street is the spectacular CPR Hospital (Mant!).
The other major site is Panhala Fort, which takes about half an hour to get to from the city. It’s worth the trip, parts of it have great architecture, and you get to drive through it to all of the key points which means it’s actually easy and painless to visit rather than a literal hike like many forts. The drivers should give you a good enough tour, highlights are the granary (ambarkhana), sajja kothi, andhar bhav (well), and teen dwarza (main gate). There’s more and we didn’t see it all, there’s a decent guide here. Supposedly you get good pithla bhakri at the fort. I like the story behind the statue of Shivaji’s barber. When you drive out from Kolhapur or on the way back, keep an eye out for the Panchganga Ghat as you pass the river, and notice the New Palace from afar as you drive back in.
As for minor sites, there’s the Rankala lake which is nice for a stroll in the evening, I guess, though the most interesting part is the opulent Shalini Palace (Not Mant, but Mantian nonetheless, around half a century after he died) that you’ll find there. Note you can only see it from the gate and can’t go in (it was a hotel some years back).
I really enjoyed the Chandrakant Mandare Art Museum which had a lot of artworks by Mandare (a famous Marathi actor in addition to being a gifted artist) as well as works by other well known local artists, some of them depicting Kolhapur. In addition to a few works at the Town Hall and New Palace, there are also local artworks at the Baburao Painter Art Society and the museum at Shahu Maharaj’s birthplace, both of which I enjoyed, but they are very small galleries and probably aren’t worth visiting for the average people.
Additionally, there are some scattered great bits of architecture, like the Sri Laxmisen Digambar Jain Math and the Vishalgadh House (near New Palace), these are worth checking out if you’re nearby, but also you can just look around randomly wherever you are, I’m sure there are plenty of hidden gems I didn’t find.
It was very cool to see the gyms where people practice wrestling, we got to peek in at Gangavesh Talim and Motibaug Talim, though we didn’t see any actual wrestling (at Gangavesh they told us to come back at 4:30 pm). Gangavesh had a doodh katta across the street. (I also read about people seeing female martial artists practicing at various parts of the city but I never saw this, it would have been cool to see).
One thing I did not have time for was visiting the Kopeshwar Mandir, which is around 90 minutes from the city. Probably not worth the day trip for most people but it looks pretty stunning! The neighboring town of Ichalkaranji is on the way, the palace there also looks to be worth seeing, it is now the engineering college.
Food
I had a lot of great food in Kolhapur though I’m not sure how much I like quintessentially Kolhapuri food. I should point out that I’m vegetarian and thus can’t eat the bulk of the local specials, and I also largely dislike soupy things which seem to be an important component of Kolhapuri food. Of the things I ate and liked (i.e. the non-soupy things), I couldn’t really distinguish it from the food of northern Maharashtra, maybe there are nuances I didn’t pick up on, or the prominent Kolhapuri elements come out more in the non-vegetarian dishes. One thing that did stick out was the use of coconut, though it isn’t as prominent as food further south and came off more as a garnish. I’d also say there was a heavier use of garlic. Food in Kolhapur has a reputation for being very spicy but I don’t think that stereotype is true at all. Note that whenever you see “Veg Kolhapuri” or anything labeled “Kolhapuri” on a menu, that’s a modern restaurant dish and not something traditional to Kolhapur. Many menus are only in Marathi so come equipped with the Google Translate app, or better yet a Marathi speaking romantic partner.
Meat eaters should seek a better guide to the city, the best I saw for the unique meat dishes of Kolhapur was in the Instagram stories of someone named Floydian Cookery. There are surprisingly few resources on the food of the city considering how much of a food city it is. I would still encourage non-vegetarians to read on below as there are some unique street foods and snacks you can get here, and the quality of the vegetarian dishes at some of the restaurants should extrapolate to the non-vegetarian dishes as well.
A lot of places offer local thalis. The best I had was definitely at Dehaati, which is a nice, upscale place (but not expensive, I think the veg thali was 280) that I feared would be too “touristy” but served top notch, authentic homestyle Maharashtrian food, well spiced and not oily. They only serve thalis, and when we were there the vegetarian dishes were bharli vangi, matki usal, and a homestyle thin, liquidy yellow dal (I believe these three dishes change daily), all were very good and like something my mother-in-law would make. Served with bhakris. I only wish dessert were something local rather than gulab jamun. The solkadi was less robust than some of the smaller places but it was still delicious. I highly recommend Dehaati for everyone and would definitely go back. It might be the best Maharashtrian food I’ve had at a restaurant, though I guess I haven’t been to that many Maharashtrian restaurants.
We also got a thali at a small local vegetarian place called Mahavir Jain Khanaval Hotel, packed at lunchtime. There was an excellent dal and cucumber salad, but I didn’t care for the soupy cauliflower sabzi or the spicy red soup (rassa?), but then I hate soup. They have a la carte options as well, we got the “onion besan” which was like a pithla, that was great, and I would go back to try their bharli vangi, drumstick sabzi, and some other dishes. I recommend this place for vegetarians, and if you’re with a group get a mix of a la carte dishes in addition to the thali.
The one other thali we got was at the famous Hotel Opal, which is near Dehaati, but that was one of the few disappointments we had on our trip. I appreciate that they make vegetarian versions of the tambda and pandhra rassa, but I didn’t find either that interesting (also, I hate soup). There was a chawli usal which had good flavors but was too oily, and then a sabzi and paneer which were both generic and very oily. The highlight was the cucumber salad. Maybe the meat dishes are better, but I don’t recommend it for vegetarians.
A lot of people seek out the misal in Kolhapur, but I’m not a big misal fan (see my dislike for spicy soupy things, and add to that that it’s among the least utility maximizing dishes of all time, spoiling perfectly good farsan by putting it in a broth so that you get all of the negative health externalities of fried food with none of the textural pleasures). I still tried a few though, and I liked them, I think more than other misals. I have tried many of the top misal places in Mumbai and Pune, but those were mostly over five years ago so it’s hard to say how Kolhapuri misal differs, but I felt the Kolhapuri version were more garlicky and had more complex spicing, and they were also served with yogurt. Like Pune they are served with sliced bread rather than pao.
In Kolhapur, Chorage near Mahalaxmi Temple (Google Maps shows another location near the lake, I’m not sure if that’s connected in any way) had a nice, very complex flavor, while the famous Bawada (in the northern part of the city, with pictures of visiting celebrities all over the walls) seemed flatter, though they also had the variation of the misal gravy served with a vada, which I maybe like more than regular misal but probably less than just a plain vada (some places also serve onion bhajias with the misal gravy). Both places had excellent solkadi. I didn’t get to try Phadatare (east of the old palace area) as I was sick that day, but I went with my wife and it smelled like the most complex of them all (the cinnamon smell was strong) and was the best experience with the busy lunch crowd and the open kitchen where you see them assembling the misal. I think I would most recommend Phadatare in spite of (or because of?) not actually eating there, but Chorage is a great option as well.
Lesser known but a must try in Kolhapur is akkha masoor. We got one at M.. M… Masura (they have multiple branches, I think all related, we went to the one in Shahupuri). I’m not sure what is Kolhapuri about the taste, it felt more like a local spin on a dal makhni than anything distinctly Maharashtrian (or maybe since we ordered it with ghee those distinctive flavors got drowned out), but it was delicious and I would love to try more next time I’m in town (many restaurants only or mostly serve that, and I’ve heard the one at Dehaati is great though they don’t make it every day). You can get it plain, with ghee, with garlic, or with ghee and garlic, we went with the ghee one and it was extremely decadent and gave it a nice sweetness, though next time I’d opt for the plain one so I could pick out the spices more. One half plate fed two people. They had a few other dishes (eggplant, pithla) that we didn’t try. We got it with both bhakri and tandoori butter roti, I’d say go with bhakri if getting it plain but go with the roti if indulging in the ghee version. However you get it, highly recommended!
We also sought out Kolhapuri bhakarwadi, which is entirely different from other versions. Instead of the sweet spicy balance, this was spicier and had a strong garlic kick and no sweetness. We got ours at Gruhini Vastu Bhandar and they were amazing. At Gruhini they kept offering us samples of all of their offerings, all made right behind the counter and they were all very good, various fried snacks and sweets (mainly laddus, which were great, not too sweet, I especially like the peanut ones), but the bhakarwadis are the star of the show here. Highly recommended! Have them as fresh as possible, they’re best when still warm. The other famous local snacks place is right next door but we didn’t try it.
Another local snack I recommend is the Kolhapuri bhel which we got from the famous Rajabhau Bhel. There are a few branches, but multiple locations on Google Maps were closed and the one we went to, which I believe is the main one, is not even listed on Google Maps! It was next to a sugarcane juice vendor here. I believe they are only open in the evening. I really liked the bhel, it has a sweet and tangy chutney. Ask for it to be spicy, when they asked what spice level we wanted we said however they normally make it but I found it to be too sweet. We got a second one with their amla chutney and asked for it to be spicier and it was great.
The one unique fruit/vegetable I saw in Kolhapur was something called Ram kand mool, named because apparently Ram and co. ate it when exiled in the forest. They sell it in very thin slices, the taste is sort of like jicama. Highly recommended, we found it outside the library opposite Rajaram College. More info on Wikipedia and in the referenced articles, lots of interesting information here.
That’s the bulk of my recommendations. There are other street foods and snacks to look out for if you’re interested, though none of these are strongly recommended by me.
Near Mahalaxmi temple there are tons of stalls serving thalipith (the one we got was was too oily, but the flavor was great and it was much better than the deep fried ones restaurants serve in Mumbai while not being as good as a proper homemade one, though it was served with a good kala chana with coconut that seemed more Malvani style to me) and appe/paniyaram (good but the chutney was too thin and I say save calories for something more interesting).
There are local variations of vada pao served with sliced bread (I don’t get it…), some have chutney and some just have fried chili, I was too sick to have more than a bite at Deepak Vada but it didn’t seem like anything special to me.
There was something we got called basundi chai made with milk that’s been thickened much more than usual, fun idea but unfortunately it was way too sweet.
There’s a local chain called Nitin’s Canteen which serves a dish called Khantoli which is like a savory half-French toast with an omellete on top, or something like that, with ketchup and Kolhapuri masala, it wasn’t very interesting though the story behind it is fun. The restaurant started out as a French toast shop selling to Polish refugees who were in Kolhapur during WW2, and after the Polish population left the people running the eatery decided to localize the dish.
There’s an ice cream shop called Kiga which apparently you find throughout Maharashtra though I had never seen it before, we went because they had misal ice cream and bhakarwadi ice cream, but it turns out both flavors have been discontinued because not enough people ordered them! For shame! We sampled a handful of flavors that they had (a mix of fresh fruits and local flavors like puranpoli and paan) and though I mostly liked them, some were downright odd and overall I didn’t feel the quality compared to brands like Natural’s.
Lastly, I must mention the fresh buffalo milk. It’s a Kolhapur thing, they milk the buffalos right in front of you and serve the milk raw (in cups that aren’t especially clean, with the guy doing the milking being the one to give the cup to you with his unwashed hands). For some, including myself, this is a must do. Unfortunately, I was in a state of gastrointestinal distress 48 hours later, basically ruining a full day of my trip, and while it could have been anything I ate, this is a fairly likely culprit (it was also the only thing I ate that my wife did not, and she didn’t get sick). If you can’t resist, save it for the end of your trip. Or come to a compromise by taking your own bottle and boiling it at your stay and saving your raw milk experience for somewhere more hygienic. There are apparently doodh kattas all over the city, I believe active in the mornings and evenings. We went to Mirajkar Tikti Dudh Katta near Khasbag Maidan, and we also saw one across from Gangavesh Talim around here. Worth seeing even if you’re (understandably) too scared to drink it.
Also… we went to work from Starbucks one day. Though we work from cafes a lot when we travel, we’ve always looked down on Starbucks as a middling passe chain and go with cool local places that have character instead. But in Kolhapur Starbucks is the nicest place in town by a long shot (though it’s slightly out of town, on the highway). This made me appreciate Starbucks more. Nice, clean, good seating, good AC, friendly staff, solid quality. We tried to work from a few local places but they were lacking in most categories. We also tried working from the cafe in the fancy hotel but there was a wedding function and it was pretty loud. Now I’m a Starbucks fan. I’ve embraced the global capitalist coffee monolith and have been to a few of their locations since. The Kolhapur branch will always be my favorite, though.
Still, my heart will always be with the small local places, which is why I’m happy to see that the tiny outdoor coffee place we stopped at called Coffee Culture has now expanded into a full fledged cafe with nice looking indoor seating, now called Coffee Sanskruti. They got their coffee directly from a small family farm in Chikmagalur and it was great. I also saw there’s a new cafe and co-working space called Coffee Hypothesis which looks nice. And when I was sick, my wife had a nice time working from Nish Cafe, even if it’s not at the standard of the places we go to in bigger cities or other countries.
Also, after I got sick I just wanted to eat something light, and we found good, inexpensive salads on Swiggy from a place called Garden Bites by Nourishing Farms which grows its own hydroponic veggies. I usually avoid raw salads in India unless I’m at a fancy restaurant, but I figure since they grow their own stuff it’s probably safer to eat than most…
Recommended Reading
I unfortunately didn’t find much to read on Kolhapur! There are no books on the city, which is too bad. Maybe it doesn’t deserve a massive tome, but a slim book, like Aleph’s City Series, could tie together interesting historical episodes, the city’s position as a Marathi cultural capital, the rich food culture, the wrestling scene, the film history, and other eccentricities of the city. There’s not much to read online either, and most of what I read was just on Wikipedia, but I’ve collected some of the things I found valuable.
Good brief summary of things to do and history.
Good read about the maharaja who was a reformer and pioneer of affirmative action in India. The best article I found on Kolhapur. For more, check out Rajarshi Shahu Chhatrapati's Wikipedia page.
I also have a very interesting tidbit on an earlier ruler of Kolhapur: Rajaram II died in Florence and is the subject of the city's Monumento all'Indiano, paid for by the British government. The short Wikipedia pages are worth reading. "The act of cremation, banned in Florence, led to a fierce argument among doctors and scientists as to the merits and morals of the funeral technique."
I didn’t find much travel writing on Kolhapur, but I liked Lawrence Osborne’s description of his visit to the palace:
“It was history compressed into an experience that had no order or meaning for us. Ghostly portraits of dead royalty loomed out of the walls, with names that could not resonate for us: Princess Indumati Ranisaheb, or the old lady Laxmibai Maharunisaheb, who had been photographed caressing a pet cheetah. Who were they? And had they really sat around in this Mad Hatter's palace reading by the light of lamps with deer feet?” (more here)
There were a few good reads on the wrestling culture of Kolhapur, which I find to be very interesting despite having no real interest in wrestling.
“The pehelwans often paused while wrestling, to besmirch themselves with the very soil that they fought on—dredged from the river bank and mixed with ghee, mustard oil, peanut oil, lemon juice, turmeric powder, yoghurt and milk, believed to make the soil sanative—to make the task of gripping their oil-soaked bodies easier to their opponents.”
“It seemed strange that these men who worshipped a Hindu god and lived a righteous life guided by Hindu principles would call it so – taleem—the Urdu word for education—and not akhada.
Its genesis, Sambhaji told us, was rooted in 1894 during Chatrapati Shahu Maharaj’s rule when he built hundreds of akhadas throughout Kolhapur and invited wrestlers from all over pre-partition India, several of them from the part of Punjab that now lies in Pakistan where the commonly used term, on account of the language spoken, was taleem. It was also the birth-place of the legendary Gama pehelwan, born Ghulam Muhammad in 1878, who remained undefeated in a career spanning over 50 years, his story known to every pehelwan.
“During partition riots,” said Sambhaji, “he guarded a neighbourhood colony of Hindus in the face of a violent mob…that is the ideal every pehelwan lives up to.”“
And this one has great photos in addition to interesting information.
“monthly expenditure on food and dietary supplements cost between 10 to 25 thousand rupees depending on the age and weight of the wrestler” (I would eat so well with a 25k monthly food budget! I’m very curious how many people this investment pays off for.)
“Till a few years back, women were prohibited from wrestling. But now the scenario has changed, especially after the success of the Bollywood movie 'Dangal'“
I also enjoyed learning about Polish refugees who lived in a village outside of Kolhapur during WW2.
“They were housed in barracks on the banks of the Panchganga river. The expenses were borne by the Polish government in exile, and over a relatively short span of five years, a mini-Poland came up with its own school, hospital, post office and fire brigade”
And here are some old photos of the city.
And there must be some good Marathi novels or short stories set here?
Cinema
Kolhapur played a big role in India’s early film history. See Baburao Painter and V. Shantaram and their respective film studios Maharashtra Film Company and Prabhat Film Company, and also see the Maharaja’s studio Kolhapur Movietone (note that they got the Maharaja’s name wrong here). You can read more here with a free account, it’s short and worth reading for film nerds.
Kolhapur is no longer a major hub, though they still shoot a fair amount in the environs around Kolhapur and have film studios there, but I can’t think of a single movie actually set in Kolhapur (I assume there are some Marathi movies set there, please share if you know of any good ones). Ashutosh Gowariker is from there, and there’s also Main Kolhapur Se Aaye from Anjaam, but that’s all I got for the city’s role in modern Indian cinema.
None of the old single screens I saw were architectural gems but I enjoyed seeing them nonetheless. There’s a cluster of them all in one area, Padma, Prabhat, Rajaram, Shahu, and Royal, you can check them all out in a five minute walk.
You can visit Baburao Painter’s family house which has a small art gallery inside. That was really cool to experience. There’s a memorial to him outside. Also, the art gallery at Shahu Maharaj’s birthplace has a painting of Painter showing a film projection to the Maharaja! I loved that.
Nicely written 👌Hope u definitely enjoyed kolhapur👍