Hampi Utsav
Music and dance staged among the ruins of Vijayanagara, on the boulder-strewn banks of the Tungabhadra.
Hampi was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire, and at its height in the sixteenth century one of the largest cities in the world. What survives is spread across several square kilometres of extraordinary terrain — granite boulders the size of houses, stacked by erosion into hills, with temples, bazaars, aqueducts and royal enclosures threaded between them. The Group of Monuments at Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hampi Utsav is organised by the Government of Karnataka and uses the ruins as its venue. Classical and folk performance is staged against the monuments, with the Vitthala temple complex and its stone chariot among the settings. There are processions, craft stalls and a night of illumination across the site.
The festival is worth pairing with the ordinary business of being in Hampi: the Virupaksha temple, which has been in continuous worship for centuries; the coracle crossing of the Tungabhadra; and the climb up Matanga Hill, which is the standard place to watch the light change over the whole valley.
The nearest railhead is Hosapete, around 13km away. Dates are set by the state and are not fixed to the same week each year.