Deccan Odyssey Maharashtra Splendor Tour

Day 1 Mumbai, Boarding at the Victorian Terminus

Your Maharashtra Splendor week starts in the middle of Mumbai, at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, a Gothic Revival railway station that is itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Guests assemble at around 15:30 for registration. Our driver collects you from your hotel with enough time for the city's traffic, which can turn a ten-minute drive into forty minutes on a weekday afternoon. At the station you are greeted with a traditional welcome and a cool drink, your passport details are checked, and porters carry your bags to your cabin so you never have to handle them yourself.

Once on board, take time to learn the layout of the train. The cabins are compact but well thought out, with wardrobes, a writing desk, a private shower room and windows wide enough to watch the suburbs give way to open country. Your cabin attendant explains the controls and asks about dietary preferences, which the kitchen keeps on file for the whole week. Dress on board is smart casual in the evenings, and comfortable walking shoes are worth packing near the top of your bag, since several days involve uneven stone floors and stairs.

The train pulls out of Mumbai in the late afternoon and climbs into the Sahyadri hills, the long mountain range that separates the coastal strip from the high Deccan plateau. If there is still light, look out for the steep cuttings, viaducts and tunnels on the Kasara climb, one of the steepest main-line gradients in India. Dinner is served in the restaurant car, with a menu that mixes Maharashtrian dishes with continental choices. Afterward the bar lounge is a relaxed place to meet the other guests, many of whom will be traveling in India for the first time.

Day 2 Nashik, Sacred River and Wine Country

You wake in Nashik, a pilgrimage city on the upper Godavari River that has a second, more modern reputation as the center of Indian winemaking. After breakfast on board, your guide leads a walk along the stone riverfront steps near Ram Kund, where pilgrims bathe and families perform rites for their ancestors. Mornings here are busy and colorful, with flower sellers, priests and stalls selling brass pots, incense and dried fruit. Photography of the river scene is generally fine, but ask before photographing people at prayer, and keep shoulders and knees covered as a mark of respect.

Later in the morning you drive out to a vineyard on the edge of the city. The hills around Nashik sit at roughly six hundred meters, and cool winter nights followed by warm, dry days suit grapes surprisingly well. A winemaker or sommelier takes you through the rows of Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and Shiraz vines, then into the cellar to show how the sparkling wine is made by the traditional bottle-fermented method. Harvest runs from roughly January to March, so guests on the March departure may see grapes being picked and crushed.

Lunch is served at the vineyard and paired with a tasting of white, rosé, red and sparkling wines. Indian wine is still young as an industry, and many travelers are surprised by the freshness of the whites. Take it slowly: the afternoon is warm and the train departs in the early evening. If you would rather skip the wine, the kitchen prepares fresh lime sodas and fruit juices. Back on board, the train heads east across the plateau toward Aurangabad, now officially called Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, with dinner served on the way.

Day 3 Ellora, a Temple Carved from a Cliff

Breakfast is served as the train reaches Aurangabad, and by about 08:30 you are on the road to the Ellora Caves, roughly 30 kilometers away. The drive passes the hilltop fortress of Daulatabad, whose walls and tall victory tower are visible from the highway. Ellora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of thirty-four caves cut into a basalt escarpment between about the sixth and tenth centuries. Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves sit side by side, a reminder of how these faiths shared the same landscape and patronage for centuries.

The centerpiece is Cave 16, the Kailasa temple. Rather than being built up from blocks, the entire temple, with its towers, halls, bridges and life-size stone elephants, was carved downward from the top of the cliff by removing an estimated two hundred thousand tonnes of rock. Walk the upper gallery around its edge for the best view of its scale, then go inside to see the panels of Shiva and the scenes from the great epics. Bring a hat and water, because the courtyard traps heat even in the cooler months.

Ellora is closed on Tuesdays, which is why the train program places it on a Monday. After the visit you return to the station for lunch on board, and the train sets off toward Jalgaon in the afternoon. The rest of the day is unhurried. Some guests book a massage at the spa car, others read in the lounge as cotton fields and small villages pass the windows. In the evening the bar serves cocktails before dinner, and the conversation inevitably turns to how anyone could have carved Kailasa by hand.

Day 4 Ajanta, Murals in a River Gorge

The train arrives at Jalgaon early, and after breakfast you drive about 60 kilometers to the Ajanta Caves, a journey of roughly one hour and forty-five minutes through farmland and low hills. The caves are cut into the curve of a horseshoe-shaped gorge above the Waghora River. They were abandoned for over a thousand years and then rediscovered by a British hunting party in the early nineteenth century. UNESCO now lists them among the world's protected heritage, and scholars rank the murals and sculpture here near the top of surviving early Buddhist art.

Ajanta's thirty or so caves fall into two periods, the earliest from around the second century before the common era and the later group from roughly the fifth century. The later caves hold the famous murals: princes and dancers, elephants and monkeys, and the serene Bodhisattva Padmapani holding a lotus. Light inside is kept low to protect the paint, so allow your eyes time to adjust. Shoes come off in several caves, and there are a fair number of steps along the gorge path, so wear easy slip-on footwear and carry socks.

Ajanta is closed on Mondays, and this Tuesday visit sidesteps that. By early afternoon you are back at Jalgaon for lunch on board, and the train begins its long run south toward Kolhapur. This is the quietest afternoon of the week, and it is a good one to try the spa, join a game of carom, the board game played with flicked discs that every Indian household seems to own, or simply watch the plateau go by. Dinner is served on board as the train travels through the night.

Day 5 Kolhapur, Palaces, Temple Bells and Folk Music

You reach Kolhapur around midday after a slow morning on board, and an early lunch is served before you step out. Kolhapur was the seat of a branch of the Maratha royal family, and the city still feels proud and self-contained. Your first stop is the New Palace, completed in the late nineteenth century in a blend of Indian and European styles and still partly occupied by the former royal family. Its museum displays weapons, hunting trophies, royal portraits and personal belongings of the ruling princes, including items from Chhatrapati Shahu, a reforming ruler remembered across the state.

Next comes a stop in the city's old market streets, where craftsmen make the hand-stitched leather sandals known around India simply as Kolhapuris. They are tough, comfortable once worn in and light enough to slip into any suitcase as a gift. In the late afternoon tea is served at a local venue with a performance of Maharashtrian folk music and dance, energetic and full of wit, with dancers in bright nine-yard draped dress and singers backed by a drum and harmonium. The songs are usually sung in Marathi, but the guide explains the stories, which are often playful and a little cheeky.

As evening falls you visit the Mahalakshmi temple, one of the most important shrines to the goddess in western India and more than a thousand years old. The carved black stone exterior is impressive, though non-Hindu visitors should follow the guide's lead on which areas are open. Some departures also include a display of the traditional Maratha martial art, with swords, sticks and spinning blades. You return to the station by about 19:00, and the train leaves for Goa, descending toward the coast overnight while dinner is served in the restaurant car.

Day 6 Goa, Latin Quarter and Spice Gardens

Breakfast is served as the train arrives in Goa, and at about 08:30 you drive into Panaji for a walk through Fontainhas, the old Latin Quarter. Narrow lanes are lined with houses painted ochre, blue and green, many with tiled roofs, wooden shutters and small balconies. Portuguese rule here lasted more than four centuries, and you still see Portuguese surnames on the doorplates and painted tiles on the walls. Morning is the best time for this walk, before the humidity builds, and light cotton clothes and a sun hat are the right choice in every season.

The tour continues to Old Goa, once one of the richest cities in Asia. The Basilica of Bom Jesus holds the remains of Saint Francis Xavier, and nearby stand the tall, broken walls of the Church of St. Augustine, whose surviving bell tower is a landmark for miles. These churches and convents are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Inside the basilica, the gilded altars and carved wooden pulpit reward a slow look, and modest dress is expected. The program can vary slightly between departures, so your guide will confirm the exact stops on the morning of the visit.

Lunch is a Goan feast at a spice plantation, where you walk through groves of pepper vines, cardamom, nutmeg and slender palms before sitting down to fish in spiced sauce, coconut dishes and local sweets, often with a short folk performance. Depending on timing, there may be an hour of free time at a nearby beach before you return to the train by early evening. Dinner is served on board as the Deccan Odyssey heads north along the Konkan Railway, one of the most dramatic coastal lines in the country.

Day 7 Sindhudurg and the Konkan Coast

The Konkan coast is a world away from the dry plateau you crossed earlier in the week: rivers, coconut groves, red laterite earth and fishing villages tucked into small bays. The train pauses in the Sindhudurg district, named after the sea fort built in the seventeenth century by the Maratha founder Shivaji on a rocky island off the town of Malvan. Programs here have varied between departures, and the train team confirms the details on board, but the day usually combines coastal scenery with a visit to the old princely town of Sawantwadi.

Sawantwadi Palace is known for two crafts that survive almost nowhere else: brightly painted lacquered wooden toys and fruit, and round, hand-painted playing cards that were once a pastime of courtiers. Artisans still work in the palace workshops, and you can watch them at their benches. Nearby Pinguli village is home to a community of traditional puppeteers and painters, and a short visit gives a glimpse of folk arts that are rarely seen outside the region. Lunch may be served at the palace or on board.

On some departures guests also take a short boat ride across to the fort itself, where local fishermen ferry visitors and dolphins are sometimes seen in the bay. Whatever the exact program, this is a softer, slower day, and a fitting last stop before the city. You return to the train in the afternoon for a farewell dinner as it travels north overnight. This is the time to settle any extra bills with the guest relations team and pack, since the arrival in Mumbai is early.

Day 8 Arrival in Mumbai

Breakfast is served early on board as the train runs through the outskirts of Mumbai, and after eight days you roll back into Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, where the journey began. Thank your cabin attendant and the restaurant team, who will have learned how you take your coffee by now, and leave your luggage for the porters. Waiting beside the carriage will be a chauffeur from our team, ready to drive you either to a city hotel or straight out to the terminal, whichever suits your onward schedule. Before you leave the station, step back onto the concourse for one last look at its carved stone and stained glass.

Travelers with a same-day international connection should pick an evening or overnight flight from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport; the road out from the terminus can take anything from three quarters of an hour to well over an hour. A day-use room is easy for us to book if you would like a shower and a nap first. With a spare afternoon, a drive past the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, followed by lunch in the Kala Ghoda arts district, is an easy way to see the best of South Mumbai.

Many guests extend their stay. Udaipur and its lake palaces are a short flight away, Kerala's backwaters make a calm contrast to a busy week, and a few extra nights in Goa let you enjoy the beaches you only glimpsed from the train. The Jaipur office of Top Indian Holidays books each add-on personally, choosing chauffeured cars, regional guides and hotels our staff have inspected, and our support line stays open around the clock until you board your flight home. Tell us what you enjoyed most on the train, and we will shape the next chapter around it.