its often said that the best way to explore any city is on foot and that goes for bengaluru as well the citys infamous lack of pavements notwithstanding the citys walk culture has evolved dramatically in the past few years and has something for everyone whether youre interested in heritage parks food or photography it doesnt matter where youre from either you could be a tourist an expat someone whos moved here from another city in india or even a longtime resident of bengaluru looking to get a new perspective on the city unlike mumbai or kolkata bengaluru doesnt have that much by way of monuments i used to conduct tours in delhi and when i came back here i found that i didnt know much about kempe gowda and what he had done for the city so i did a lot of research and came up with several ideas to do walks here says mansoor ali founder of a walking tour company that conducts walks for everything from heritage and food to sarishopping tours in chickpet and a malgudi days bungalow walk in which they take people through old bungalows in malleswaram and basavangudi the idea behind walks says poornima dasharathi of a walking tour company known for starting pete walks in the city is to make people more aware of bengaluru no matter where their interests lie we have heritage walks for people whod like to hear a story about the city the food walks are for foodies who want to explore the city through their primary interest she says they also do themed city tours such as the medieval bangalore trail bangalore fort kempe gowda fort tipu sultans summer palace avenue road and city market a rural charms trail gavi gangadhareshwara dodda ganesh temple and bull temple and a south indian culture trail a walk through malleswaram that takes walkers to iconic eateries temples old bungalows and sampige road a key element of these walks is photography but for those purely into the art there are photography walks in which gyaan on heritage food and the culture in the city come second to a passion for capturing these subjects on a camera case in point a ninehour 25km photowalk in which a group of photographers visited all four kempe gowda towers in ulsoor lal bagh gavipuram and mekhri circle but did not necessarily take pictures of only the towers photographer peevee who has been part of this and several other photography walks in the city says our intention is only to shoot photographs and not to learn about food heritage or buildings we will visit a place say a city market churches in the cantonment area brigade road or vv puram food street and spend an hour or two there at most sometimes we visit a place like a market in the morning and go back in the evening when the light is interesting and the place is buzzing with activity we then