0089, 3100 INDIA (Karnataka) - Group of Monuments at Hampi (UNESCO WHS)

3100 Lotus Mahal at the Zenana Enclosure in Hampi

Posted on 02.01.2012, 27.06.2017
"…as large as Rome and very beautiful to the sight. There are many canals that bring water right into Vijayanagara, and in places there are lakes. The palace of the king, which is larger than the castle at Lisbon, is close to a palm grove and other richly bearing fruit trees. Below the Moorish quarter there is river… and along its banks fruit trees growing so closely together that they look like a thick forest", wrote the Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes around 1520, when he visited Vijayanagara (City of Victory), the capital of the empire with the same name, the last bastion of Hinduism in India.

0089 Elephant Stables in Hapi

The empire has reached its peak during the reign of Krishnadevaraya (1509-1529), when were erected the impressive temples and elephant stables still standing today at the village of Hampi. Even if they don't agree as to the origin of the empire, historians agree the founders were inspired by Vidyaranya, a saint at the Sringeri monastery to fight the Muslim invasion. After more then 200 years, the killing of emperor Aliya Rama Raya in 1565 at the battle of Talikota, against an alliance of the Deccan sultanates, mark the end of the city. The Sultanate's army plundered Vijayanagara and reduced it to the ruins; it was never re-occupied.

3079 INDIA (Karnataka) - Group of Monuments at Pattadakal (UNESCO WHS)

3079 Pattadakal - Galaganatha Temple;
Shrine of Jambulinga; Sangameswarar Temple.

Pattadakal is a village located on the left bank of the Malaprabha River in Bagalakote, featuring 7th and 8th-century Hindu (Shaivism) and Jain temples. They represents the high point of an eclectic art which, under the Chalukya dynasty, achieved a harmonious blend of architectural forms from northern and southern India. Actually, Pattadakal was the capital of the Chalukya dynasty between the 6th and 8th centuries. The Chalukya architecture style originated during the 5th - 8th centuries at Aihole in the Malaprabha river basin, in present-day Bagalkot district of Karnataka state.

2503 INDIA (Karnataka) - A letter box in Dharwad

Department of Posts, trading as India Post, is a government-operated postal system in India. Generally referred to within India as "the post office", it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. Mail is collected from 579,595 letter boxes by 154,979 post offices, of which almost 90% are in rural areas. On average, a post office serves an area of 21.23 square kilometres and a population of 7,114.