Astroport | Dadhikar Fort

Long weekends are always a boon and the time to travel for a travel freak like me. I love to explore new places and experiences whenever I get an opportunity. This time, I experienced something unique that I never thought I would ever search for. While searching for weekend getaways from Delhi, a blog on Astroport suddenly popped up, and we instantly decided to finalize this place.

It was the long weekend of March, thanks to Good Friday. And we decided to go and see the stars, planets, moon, sun, galaxies, formations…etc, technically, the sky, the universe. So we made our booking in advance to Astroport, which is in the Alwar district.

Astroport: Weekend Gateway from Delhi

We started early on a Friday morning in our own car and reached the resort by lunch, taking a stop for breakfast in between. It roughly took us 5-6 hours from Delhi to reach this place.

After lunch and some rest, our first activity was the Astroport Tour, which included a visit to the entire area, organic farming, etc, followed by a small trek. There was a small temple at the top, and the view of the entire valley was amazing.

After the evening tea and snacks, the real experience started for which we had gone there: the world of dark sight, astronomy, stars, planets, moon, galaxies, constellations, etc. With the help of a telescope, we saw pole stars, Sirius stars, the planet Venus, and the moon. And trust me, with telescopes, they look so beautiful compared to what you see with the naked eye.

It was a full moon day, the stars were less visible as they were overshadowed by the stunning beauty of the moon. No wonder Bollywood compares the beauty of a woman with the moon in so many movies and its clique dialogues – “tere chera itna khoobsurat hai ki chand bhi sharma jae”, “yeh chaand sa roshan chera” and many more. But the Moon is seriously that beautiful.  Even the stars looked so beautiful.

Post this session, we saw a cultural show arranged for us, followed by Dinner.

Our second session started at 5.30 am in the morning. We had to reach on time else we would miss watching the planets. The first thing which we saw was the planet Jupiter with its four moons. It was a lovely sight. Then, the next thing we saw was planet Saturn, the ring clearly visible. It was so beautiful, I couldn’t take my eyes off. I wanted to see both Jupiter and Saturn again and again. It was a delight to the eyes. Mars appeared as a small red dot in front of the other two.

I was really happy after watching the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn. We watched the gigantic Sun in the third session at 8.30 am, with special glasses There was a lot of information provided in this session about a lot of things – why do we study the sun, moon, planets, stars, universe. Why we should never see the sun with the naked eye, about the gases…etc. The session was lovely.

The Sun looked so red, radiant, and beautiful.

Dadhikar Fort

After breakfast, we checked out and moved to our next location, Dadhikar Fort, where we booked our stay for that night. On the way, we visited City Palace, Alwar/Bala Quila Fort, and  Dadhikar Safari. We didn’t see many animals except deer and birds during our safari, but the open jeep ride was fun.

We reached the Palace at around 4 pm. After taking some rest, we enjoyed the evening exploring the fort, followed by an amazing Rajasthani cultural program. It was the first time I actually lived the luxurious/lavish lifestyle of our queens/kings. This experience was again of the world thing.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip.