Being a big devotee of Goddess "Durga" i never miss a chance to visit any shrine dedicated to her. After Marleshwar-Mahimatgad trip, i was the latest victim of Loveria, fell in love with Anki and as it was pre-written that our destiny is together. We got engaged and i moved back to Pune after spending almost an year in Bangalore. We planned to visit Kolhapur and Panhala Fort which is near to Kolhapur. It was a short trip, we planned to leave on friday night by over night train to Kolhapur, then explore Kolhapur -Panhala in day time and back again on saturday night by train.
I did reservation of Anki by train from Mumbai to Pune, and our's from Pune to Kolhapur train. Anki reached dadar station to catch train and found all the mumbai - pune trains are cancelled :) due to pipeline broken on railway line. With no option left she catch a bus, this time adventure start's even before journey was started. Bus usually takes 4-5 hrs from Mumbai to Pune and exactly that much time was left to catch train from Pune. I reached Pune station, train was on Platform and Anki's bus has reached Aundh. I thought we lost the train, after some time Anki called she will be reaching Pune station in 5 mins, train was still at Platform and about to get green signal any time. Finally she reached station and then there was confusion of "which" Platform and "where" on Platform. We were running here and there and finally got the train. Train left within 2mins we boarded it, i thought we have the blessing of Godess and thanked her.
We reached kolhapur early morning without any more surprizes, had tea and hired a Auto to reach temple of Goddess. After reaching temple we first got an hotel, kept luggage there and went for the darshan. Since there was not much crowd we got darshan easily, such an special feeling after visiting the shrine. This temple is one of the Shaktipeeth where "third eye" of devi sati has fallen. We had lunch and catch a bus for Panhala Fort which is 15 - 20 Kms from Kolhapur.
After reading book "Shriman Yogi" i was really fascinated about various forts of Shivaji era and Panhala was one of them. Historic Panhala to Vishalgad escape of Shivaji Maharaj took place here when siddhi jouhar surrounded the fort. Sacrifice of "Siva Kashid" and Courage of "Baji Prabhu" was going on my mind as i had first look at the Fort. Fort is very huge and still in good condition. Forts was so suge that we had to hire auto to explore it completely. Yes, you can hire Auto this fort is well connected by road.
We explored the fort, saw lot of monuments and after around 1 1/2 hrs we were on our journey back to Kolhapur. After reaching kolhapur we had dinner and boarded train and we were back to Mumbai next morning. This trip was a nice short weekend outing, Panhala Fort is worth a watch.
-Jyotin
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