Queen of Hills Shimla Here We come

When your city swelters in the mid summer heat you start dreaming of taking a break to a beautiful and serene hill station. With such thoughts we have started making preparations to take a break from the grueling heat and escape to the pristine and green covered hill tops of Shimla. A hill station in the state of Himachal Pradesh. For long a visit to Shimla has been on our list of places to visit and now it seems that this dream would see the light of the day.

Since we are starting our journey from Mumbai we decided to fly down to Chandigarh so we searched the various Flight Schedules .

The other option was to book train tickets. Since the flight time is much less we searched and booked the early morning Domestic Airlines tickets as there were quite a few good deals going on. So we booked our return flight on the Mumbai Chandigarh Sector.

Now the question was how would we travel from Chandigarh to Shimla. We could go by road or take a train. We decided to travel from Chandigarh to Kalka by road and from there travel by the Small train to Shimla. This seemed to be the most interesting part of the journey. The distance between Kalka to Shimla is about 96 Kilometers. The hill train or the toy train as people call it covers this distance in 5-6 hours. The beauty of this part of the journey is that the train meanders through the hilly terrain as it climbs up and down the mountains passing through 103 tunnels. The toy train finds a place in the world heritage list of UNESCO. En route to Shimla this toy train passes through the stations of Dharampur, Solan, Kandaghat, Barog, Taradevi and Summer hill . At Barog it passes through the longest tunnel.

This would mean that by the time we reach Shimla it would be already evening so we would go straight to the hotel. Freshen up and go straight to the Mall road. The Mall road is the most happening place of Shimla and is always bustling with people both locals as well as the tourists. After dinner at one of the numerous restaurants at the Mall road we would enjoy the cool weather of Shimla strolling till late evening and then retire for the day. This would complete the itinerary for day 1

Day 2

We would start early and visit the famous Jakhoo hill. This is at a height of 8000 ft and is believed to be the highest peak of Shimla. It is a long trek enjoyed by nature lovers for its natural beauty. For the religiously inclined the steep climb is rewarded by the opportunity to visit the Jhakoo temple which has the 108 ft tall Hanuman idol. By the time we come back it would be mid day and we would have our lunch. Post lunch we would go to the Himalayan Nature Park .

In the evening we plan to visit The Scandal Point and the Ridge. This is a good place to take pictures and enjoy the sunrise and sunset.

Day 3

We would go Naldehra and Shaily Peak and enjoy the natural beauty.

This is a beautiful place to enjoy sunrise and sunset. One can also enjoy horse back rides through the rich and dense deodar trees. After a days picnic we would come back and head towards Chadwick falls and enjoy the waterfall.

Day 4

No visit to Shimla is complete without going to Kufri. The entire day would be spent here enjoying the nature and perhaps taking a horse ride.

Day 5 We would go to Chail and as my family has a number of cricket lovers we are bound to go and see the highest cricket pitch in the world.

Before we head back a visit to the lakkar bazar shimla is a must to buy souvenirs and other wooden handicrafts.

With so much fun in the lap of nature and bag full of gifts to be taken back home we would start our journey back home.