Rest day. Decided to head to the Lakshmi Vilas Palace after breakfast with Chattu for company. We took a rickshaw and went into the huge palace grounds which has a private golf course. Entry ticket to palace and museum was about 375 per head. We took a few pics outside as no pics are allowed inside. A bunch of old Bengali ladies came and asked me to take their pics - friends from Ahmedabad apparently having the time of their life.
Once inside the palace we were given an audio guide and asked to step outside towards the golf course. We took a few pics from the outside and then went back into the palace where we were led into about four or five rooms - one dining, one armoury, one hall where you have to take your footwear off - and pretty soon the trip ended. We gave back the audio guides and stepped out and took some more pics.
The museum is a long way off - go to the main gate and then walk another km - so we hired an auto. Saif took us to the museum and we walked along watching the paintings, sculptures, pictures and so on. Lots of European stuff nd lots of paintings by Raja Ravi Varma who was commissioned by Sayaji Rao Gaekwad to paint many paintings.
From there we headed off to Sur Sagar lake and then to Mandvi gate, passed by the Khande Rao Market place. Then we headed back to the hotel and stopped enroute on the bridge across Viswamitra river where the enterprising Saif showed me fat crocodiles lazing on the banks of the river/stream or whatever. I have never seen crocodiles in the open like that - only in zoos. Apparently when the river was in spate during the rains last year, the crocodiles showed up on the bridge or the roads. Crazy.
After lunch I stepped out with Saif and headed to Sayaji Baug to see the Baroda museum. The Sayaji baug garden is beautiful, large, has a small zoo and also this beautiful museum. I took a long time walking around the museum and spent more than an hour looking at lovely sculptures, paintings, stuffed animals, idols, Greco Roman figurines, an Egyptian mummy and even the skeleton of a blue whale that washed up in the coast near Baroda in 1942 or sometime - massive.
Loved the Baroda museum. I saw the toy train and school children whooping as they went along.
From there Saif took me to Kirti mandir which was for some reason shut. I hung around there for a while, took some pics and headed back to the hotel. Very satisfying day.
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