A 2-day Chikmagalur itinerary that is not a checklist

Most two-day Chikmagalur itineraries you will find online are a list of nine places with no drive times attached. Chikmagalur's roads do not work like that. The hills are slow, the last mile to anywhere good is usually a track, and if you try to see nine things you will spend eleven hours in a car and see the inside of it.

Day one

Arrive by noon. From Bengaluru that means leaving at six. The drive is about four hours if the Hassan stretch behaves.

Afternoon: do nothing. This is not filler. If you are staying on an estate, the afternoon of day one is when you walk it — you will learn more about coffee in an hour with someone who grows it than in a day of reading.

Evening: the town, or the bonfire. Chikmagalur town is small and has two or three cafes that roast their own. If you are more than 20 km out, skip it and stay put.

Day two

Mullayanagiri at sunrise. Leave at five. This is the only way to do it — by ten it is a car park with a view. It is the highest point in Karnataka at 1,930 metres and the last stretch is 500-odd steps.

Late morning: Baba Budangiri. The range next door, and the reason coffee exists in India at all — seven beans, smuggled in from Yemen in the 1600s, planted on this ridge.

Afternoon: leave, or stay. If you are driving back, leave by three. If you have a third day, spend it at a waterfall.

What this itinerary leaves out

Hebbe Falls, Kudremukh, Belur and Halebidu are all excellent and none of them fit in two days. Do not try. Come back.