Day 5, 24 June, Sightseeing at Srinagar

On day 5, the plan was to visit some of the famous places around Dal Lake.
We started around 10 am. Starting point was Dal gate which was around 5 minutes distance from our houseboat.
First place on the way was Chashme Shahi, the name comes from a spring "Chashme Sahibi".
It is also surrounded by a beautiful garden.
2.5 Kms up in the mountains is Pari Mahal. It's an old monument once a Buddhist monastery. The view of Dal Lake one can see from here, is amazing. As it is located a bit high, it offers some of the beautiful views of Dal.

Our next halt was at Nishat Garden. Like other Mughal gardens in Srinagar, it offers eye catching beauty of greenery along with the fountains.

Next comes Shalimar Garden, the famous name associated with Srinagar. Similar to Nishat, it has lot of greenery, flowers and fountains.
It has the longest fountain among all the gardens in Srinagar. One thing can be noticed that all these fountains make use of kinetic energy of the water created by the downward flow.

After taking a small halt for lunch, we were on the way to Hajarat Bal mosque. It is based in old city.
Like all old cities, it is also a very crowded place. Hajarat Bal is the holiest shrine of Kashmir situated on the left bank of Dal Lake.
After spending some time in tranquility of the mosque, we went to the Shikara ghat for a ride.
One of the Shikara owner offered us a ride of one hour in 300 Rs. It was one of the most amazing ride through this picturesque scenery of Dal Lake. He showed us the fishery farms and lotus farming done along the Dal shore.
Between, we also tried our hands on paddling the shikara with a small paddle :)

Then, it was the time for bike maintenance. After that, we returned back to the houseboat. At night, we had our dinner at a vaishno dhaba close to Dal gate.