Wine country

We headed to Nashik over the weekend to celebrate my husband's birthday. Nashik is considered a 'holy' city that hosts significant religious events and weary pilgrims each year, but we mostly went to check out the wineries. It is Maharashtra's (probably India's) wine capital. The weather was perfect - a little wet, but with the cool breeze, it felt like spring in high-country Colorado.

View from the deck at the Sula vineyard.

We sampled some wines (Dindori was a favorite) and went on a tour of the Sula winery on the first evening.

Hills around Trimbak.

We went to Trimbak the next day, around 30 km away. Trimbakeshwar temple houses one of 12 jyoti lingas (Shiva shrine) in India. Without planning to visit them, we've quite accidently seen two of 12 jyoti lingas in the last six months!

Hiking up to Gangadwar.

Our plan was to hike up Brahmagiri hill to find the source of the Godhavari, a major Indian river. We took the path up towards Gangadwar, climbed 500-odd stone steps (the locals love to tell you how many steps lead up to the various temples), and took a quick chai break before hiking on.

Vanita, Sunita, and their dad. He makes a good cup of chai.

Can you spot the trail that goes up the hill? I'm not sure how to draw arrows on my photos (maybe one of you will enlighten me), but it's the steep path climbing up smack in the center of the photo.

It felt a lot like hiking in Scotland - it was misty and wet - but we had a wonderful time. You can view more photos of our trip here. We closed the evening with a tour of another winery (no pictures, I forgot the camera in the hotel), and tasted some more wine.

We had a lovely time in Nashik, although I did feet guilty enjoying the verdant countryside knowing that the farmers in the surrounding area have been badly affected by the poor Monsoon this year (it had started raining a few days before our trip, therefore the green hills). Hopefully, there will be more rain soon and hopefully it will bring some respite.