Manali has a beautiful drive, along the river on one side and that itself makes the visit to Manali worth it. This time I stayed in the Himachal tourism cottages and the experience was amazing. They were small & cozy wooden cottages with huge garden area with each one of them. The staff was courteous enough and even arranged for bonfire on our request on one of the nights. Good food, wine and bonfire, what else would you need. The morning was equally beautiful there as the days were quite sunny and it was the time around Christmas. We enjoyed our hot cup of tea and yummy breakfast in the garden area where there were lovely flowers as well.
Personally I like walking and exploring the place wherever possible as hill stations are easily manageable by walking. We visited a quite a lot of cafes during our stay there and I must say old Manali has amazing cafes and that side of Manali has it's own charm. A few places where we had lovely experience personally are -
Café 1947 - A very cozy place, with a bonfire place inside and the food they serve is delicious. We had all Italian - pasta, pizza, lasagna as suggested by our server. Whatever we ordered was great. Also this café is river side, so if you can manage to get a seat outside and it's sunny enough to keep you bit warm, you would be able to enjoy the food and drinks with the beautiful sound of river flowing beside you. These kind of experience I specifically enjoy as we don't get any of these opportunities in our metro cities. One suggestion I would like to give, if you plan to visit this café to spend the evening there, please book a table with them in advance as they are always full and the waiting is couple of hours as once people get in here they just don't want to move out and usually sit for long long hours.
Johnson's café - This café was just at a walking distance form the cottages where we stayed and went for dinner on one of the days. the place is good and the food is good too. the only issue that we faced is that most of their menu and kitchen were closed because it wasn't the peak season for visiting Manali somehow so they were serving only from a very small section of the menu. We tried the trout fish there and it was done well.
Drifter's café - This place became one of my favorites and would be on my list for sure whenever I visit Manali. We went there for breakfast and ordered some sandwiches and Omlettes with cappuccino. Each of the food item was very well prepared and I loved it. After placing our order and while we were waiting for our food to come, we suddenly spotted a few games and books lying in the corner and we decided to pick the very old and one of the childhood favorite games - Ludo :) We started with the game and we were perfectly 4 people for it. We kept on playing for 2 hours till we finished the game. In between our food came and coffee kept on flowing in. That morning gave us a chance to revisit our childhood days and we all were super happy faces when we stepped out of that place.
River side cafes - Just before you are entering Manali, there are a few river side café and they serve amazing fresh river trout fish. We tried the grilled version of the fish and it was really well prepared and the feel itself is amazing, of sitting by the riverside, with that sound coming from flowing river, lovely rays of sun or the setting sun (depending on the time of the day you are going).
Manali has a nice market as well on the mall road in case you want to indulge in some shopping. I personally don't shop much from these places until and unless there is something really specific manufactured in that area only. Like we shopped for the local fruit wines from there, like - Apple, Peach, Guava, Grapes, Pomegranate etc. One tip - Don't forget to bargain :P
All in all, it was an amazing experience to visit this place and would love to visit anytime again, preferable this time in the season when apple orchards are full of juicy apples :)
Personally I like walking and exploring the place wherever possible as hill stations are easily manageable by walking. We visited a quite a lot of cafes during our stay there and I must say old Manali has amazing cafes and that side of Manali has it's own charm. A few places where we had lovely experience personally are -
Café 1947 - A very cozy place, with a bonfire place inside and the food they serve is delicious. We had all Italian - pasta, pizza, lasagna as suggested by our server. Whatever we ordered was great. Also this café is river side, so if you can manage to get a seat outside and it's sunny enough to keep you bit warm, you would be able to enjoy the food and drinks with the beautiful sound of river flowing beside you. These kind of experience I specifically enjoy as we don't get any of these opportunities in our metro cities. One suggestion I would like to give, if you plan to visit this café to spend the evening there, please book a table with them in advance as they are always full and the waiting is couple of hours as once people get in here they just don't want to move out and usually sit for long long hours.
Johnson's café - This café was just at a walking distance form the cottages where we stayed and went for dinner on one of the days. the place is good and the food is good too. the only issue that we faced is that most of their menu and kitchen were closed because it wasn't the peak season for visiting Manali somehow so they were serving only from a very small section of the menu. We tried the trout fish there and it was done well.
Drifter's café - This place became one of my favorites and would be on my list for sure whenever I visit Manali. We went there for breakfast and ordered some sandwiches and Omlettes with cappuccino. Each of the food item was very well prepared and I loved it. After placing our order and while we were waiting for our food to come, we suddenly spotted a few games and books lying in the corner and we decided to pick the very old and one of the childhood favorite games - Ludo :) We started with the game and we were perfectly 4 people for it. We kept on playing for 2 hours till we finished the game. In between our food came and coffee kept on flowing in. That morning gave us a chance to revisit our childhood days and we all were super happy faces when we stepped out of that place.
River side cafes - Just before you are entering Manali, there are a few river side café and they serve amazing fresh river trout fish. We tried the grilled version of the fish and it was really well prepared and the feel itself is amazing, of sitting by the riverside, with that sound coming from flowing river, lovely rays of sun or the setting sun (depending on the time of the day you are going).
Manali has a nice market as well on the mall road in case you want to indulge in some shopping. I personally don't shop much from these places until and unless there is something really specific manufactured in that area only. Like we shopped for the local fruit wines from there, like - Apple, Peach, Guava, Grapes, Pomegranate etc. One tip - Don't forget to bargain :P
All in all, it was an amazing experience to visit this place and would love to visit anytime again, preferable this time in the season when apple orchards are full of juicy apples :)
No comments:
Post a Comment