Hampi :

The people in this city are countless in number, so much so that I do not wish to write it down for fear it should be thought fabulous; but I declare that no troops, horse or foot, could break their way through any street or lane, so great are the numbers of the people and elephants. This is the best provided city in the world.

Close to these pagodas is a triumphal car covered with carved work and images, and on one day in each year during a festival they drag this through the city in such streets as it can traverse. It is large and cannot turn corners.

Going forward, you have a broad and beautiful street, where you will find all sorts of rubies, and diamonds, and emeralds, and pearls, and seed-pearls, and cloths, and every other sort of thing there is on earth and that you may wish to buy.

The size of this city I do not write here, because it cannot all be seen from any one spot, but I climbed a hill whence I could see a great part of it. I could not see it all because it lies between several ranges of hills. What I saw from thence seemed to me as large as Rome.

These are excerpts from Domingo Paes’s Chronica dos reis de Bisnaga (Chronicle of the Vijayanagar kings) re-arranged  based on experiences of my visit below.

My Visit to Hampi Utsav :

Even though Hampi is very near to my place compared to any other place I travelled , It took a long time for me to go there. One of the reason is its very difficult for me to see once worlds greatest city, deserted and in ruins. So I felt the best time to go there is during Hampi Utsav during which it may be in better state as compared to other times.

Continue reading my experiences in the Two Day tour to the Vijayanagara Empire in below blog

http://thelazytravel.com/two-day-tour-to-the-vijayanagara-empire-hampi-2/