One day in Wai

Start at the riverfront before the sun is properly up. The stone ghats along the Krishna are in use at that hour - people bathing, washing, and sitting - and there is mist coming off the water. It is the most atmospheric ninety minutes of the day and almost nobody visiting Wai bothers to see it.

Walk rather than drive. The ghats connect along the riverfront and the whole stretch takes half an hour at a slow pace. Be unobtrusive with a camera: this is a working riverfront, not a monument.

The Dholya Ganpati temple, on the Ganpati Ghat, holds a very large seated Ganesh idol and is the image most associated with Wai. The Kashi Vishweshwar temple nearby is the older and architecturally more interesting of the two, with detailed stone carving and a Nandi in the courtyard.

Both are active places of worship. Remove footwear, dress modestly, and ask before photographing inside. Neither takes long - an hour covers both comfortably.

Five kilometres out, the Menavali Ghat complex is the single most striking thing in the area: an eighteenth-century riverside ghat with two Hemadpanti-style temples and the wada of Nana Phadnavis behind them. If it feels cinematic, that is because several Hindi films have used it as exactly that.

Allow an hour. The wada keeps its own hours and is sometimes closed, so treat access to the interior as a bonus rather than the plan.

The honest advice is that the middle of the day in Wai is for eating and sitting still, particularly between March and May. If you are set on filling it, Pandavgad Fort is the option - a straightforward hill trek with a wide view over the valley, about three to four hours in total.

Do not attempt it in the early afternoon heat or after heavy monsoon rain. If you want the fort, swap it to first thing and move the ghats to the evening.

Finish at Dhom Dam, about twenty minutes from town. Arrive by four if you want to get on the water, since boating stops around dusk, and stay for the sunset over the backwaters.

The drive back is dark and the roads are narrow, so take it slowly.

Use it for Panchgani - Table Land, Sydney Point, the strawberry farms - leaving early to beat the crowds, and come back down to Wai for the evening. In August or September, use it for the Kaas Plateau instead, but book the permit before you travel.

A day trip works, but Wai rewards a night. Most of what is good here happens at dawn and dusk, and both of those are hard to reach if you are driving in from Pune and back.