Walks in India: Mall Road, Shimla
This post is part of a series on ‘Walks in India‘.
Place: Shimla
Highlights: Traffic Free Mall Road, Celebrations during festival days, Wooded sections, Restaurants.
Season: In Summer. March to June
Time of the day: Any time of the day is good.
Distance: Approximately 3kms
Difficulty: Easy
Map. This is an interactive map of the walk. Zoom in or out to get the desired perspective. For a more concise map with the important locations marked, click here.
The Walk.
Shimla’s Mall Road is closed for traffic, making it a pleasant walk with no pollution and noise from vehicles. The Road is usually full of tourists from the plains walking up and down in lookout of things to do or just searching for a quiet bench to sit on. It has an easy going, festive air.
Begin the walk at the eastern end of Mall Road, near Oberoi Clark Hotel. It is good to start with an empty stomach, which would help you in stuffing up variety of eatables all along the way. If you are feeling lazy, you can find a bench as soon as you start, just above Clark Hotel where you get good vies of Shimla’s valley. It takes less than five minutes of walking to find a few dozen option to eat and drink – it could be a coffee, light snack, ice cream or a full meal. But don’t get tempted, there is lot more to come. Just take a cup of take-away coffee and continue walking.
It is only in Shimla that you can use a lift to move from one road to other. Cart road runs parallel to the mall a hundred feet below it. The city corporation runs a lift between the roads near Combermere Hotel. Take it to Cart road and come back just for the fun of it.
A five minute walk from the lift, you will reach the ridge – the highest point in the walk. Climb up the ridge using the steps leading to it from the road. If you are there in the evening on a good day, you might be lucky to see some dance, song or other cultural performances from local artists. Gaitey Theater on the ridge is one of the charming Raj era buildings in Shimla that has still survived.
Just ahead of the ridge is scandal point where tourists love to hangout. There isn’t much to do though, just sit and watch the world go by, which is what everyone else would be doing. The walk further gets easier, since you go downhill on a gentle slope. Within five minutes of walk, you see an India Coffee House to your left. Walk-in for a snack and spend some time here. If you are hungry and it is lunch time, just next to it is Devico’s Restaurant which has good views of the valley.
Buildings start disappearing after India Coffee House and give way to wooded sections. You will find vendors along the road selling exotic fruits like litchi, apricot and plums. Pack some fruits and continue down the road. You will see less and less people as you walk, and some stretches of the roads have no buildings. Find a bench here and spend time quietly munching the fruits. Walking a little more will take you to the western end of mall road, where the walk ends.
++ More about Shimla on paintedstork.com
* A Day in Shimla
* Touts in Shimla
