Narayani Dham Temple, Lonavala

My daughter was amused. She was looking at the dancing fountain for the first time in her life (she is just 2 years old). She laughed every time the fountain went up and came down and laughed more when the cool breeze sprayed the fountain water on her face. Her giggles and laughter won’t stop.  Of course she didn’t want to leave this place and had to be forcefully picked up and carried away by me. 

During Christmas week, Saturday (2019) my family and I happen to visit the Narayani Dham Temple in Lonavala. It turned out to be a fun-filled trip for my toddler and mother in law. For quite some time my husband and I were trying to find a place where my toddler and mother in law both could be taken for an outing. My mother in law suffers from arthritis and cannot climb up the stairs or walk much so this place was ideal for her. 

In this travel blog, I would like to capture my trip with my family and highlight the things we liked about this place, I have also shared the expense chart for a family of 3 and a toddler at the end of this travel blog do check that out.

‘temple structure’ it is a sandhara type (without pradikshinapatha) white marble temple. It has a big ‘mandapa’ or portico with ample space to sit after darshan. It has three sanctums, the idols of Ganesh ji, Narayani Devi and Hanumanji are placed in each sanctum sequentially. The 'mandapa' is open from three sides so we could feel the cool breeze of December moreover soft Krishna bhajans were being played in the background, all this made a perfect devotional environment inside the temple.  

‘temple site and location’ the temple is situated in a big clean and green campus in Lonavala. The campus is well maintained. It also has a residential facility on the campus along with a kitchen where food is served at nominal rates which is most unlikely in a commercial place like Lonavala. They also have elevators and a lot of wheelchairs for the elderly and people who need help.  ‘fountains’ add to the charm of the campus. They have quite a good number of fountains of different types. Despite being a weekend and visitors on its peek, we could thankfully find a car parking space .click here for directions.

The ‘goshala’ in the Narayani Dham temple has been erected in a small space but is very clean. I was impressed to see that each cow had its own water container and that too was placed to its neck level for ease of use to the cows. The cows were from the ‘Gir’ breed. Visitors could feed the cows, so we bought a coupon for cow fodder too.

 ‘garden’ they have a big garden space but most of the area is filled with just grass and barricaded for visitors. Since the campus is in Lonavala I was expecting to see some flowers of the season, I was quite disappointed to see artificial flowers and common plants used to decorate the garden.

We particularly liked the lunch ‘Prasad’, the prasad coupons are limited and are available at the reception counter only. The quality of the food served for lunch was great, even though the food was prepared without onion and garlic it was flavorsome. The Menu was very tempting as it included a corn patice, matar panner, allu rassa, matki usal, poori, roti, dal chaval, salad, chutney and a jumbo gulabjamun. All this was unlimited.

 After having the heavy meals, we moved towards the reception area where we saw a big ‘Children’s play area’ this play area has ample of swings, slides, climbers and seesaw. Children enjoyed spending time there. We stayed here for a lot of time as my little one didn’t want to leave the spiral slide particularly. We had to pull her out of the slides promising her that we will come back here again.

Trip expense for a family of 3+1 toddler

Type of expense	Rate (in Rs)	Comments
Toll	140 (70+70)	We traveled from old Mumbai highway
Cow fodder (1 bowl)	50	Coupon is available just outside the goshala (for selective hours only)
Prasad (for 3)	105*3	This is the cost for Lunch (Snacks, lunch and dinner is also available here)
Total	505

It was nice to see the spiritual side of Lonavala in Narayani Dham temple. I would recommend this for family outings with toddlers and the elderly. 

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