It takes 6 minutes to travel from Judge Kunnu to Trivandrum . Approximate driving distance between Judge Kunnu and Trivandrum is 5 kms or 3.1 miles or 2.7 nautical miles . Travel time refers to the time taken if the distance is covered by a car.
On the table above you can see driving distance in various units namely kilo metres, miles and nautical miles.
1 Mile is about 1609 metres. 1 Nautical Mile is exactly 1852 metres.
one of the romantic hill tops associated with composer king Swati Tirunal. His biographers cite this hill as his favourite spot. The hill is today known after the small mansion that has since vanished, Kunnu Bungalow. From the Kunnu Bungalow hill, one can get a 360 degrees view of the city – a wide canvas of greenery with tall buildings here and there, with Mukkunni mala in the background and Karamana River in the foreground… No wonder that a poet fell in love with the spot. The Bungalow, which housed a school for some time, was abandoned and left to ruin. It remained as an open ground for some time but today an unromantic water tank has made the spot unworthy of a visit.
Enroute to the Kunnu Bunglow is the former Sethalmond Palace (home to Princess Sethu Lakshmi) or Mudavanmughal Kottaram, which now houses the Sree Chithra Thirunal Institute of Medical Science and Technology. The palace, which was established sometime between 1900 and 1910, is also on an elevated ground (51m).
From Poojappura, the road towards Thirumala takes you to yet another beautiful hill top – the Parakkovil hill (60m). The tip of the hill is very rocky and the temple on it has been built on top of a huge boulder. This is the spot from where the huge slab of granite was cut in order to carve the Ottakkal Mandapam, the platform in front of the idol of Lord Vishnu in the Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple. The honorific ‘Thiru’ to Thirumala could have been added due to this, in the 18th century.
C.R. Sathya, a native of Karnataka who came to the city to work at the Indian Space Research Organisation, was curious about how and from where the granite slab was brought to the temple. His research on the topic confirmed that it came from Thirumala. In fact, one can still see the spot from where the slab was cut off.
The view from the rocky hill top is again an exhilarating one, especially in December.
The road from Poojappura to PTP Nagar takes you to the PTP Nagar/Thirumala hill (77m). The palace atop the Thirumala hill in PTP Nagar is now in private possession and affords a panaromic view of the surroundings.
There are a number of other city hills, some conspicuous and others not so much. The Thycaud hill and the adjoining Vazhuthacaud hill have many heritage buildings on it, the oldest being the Residency.
In 1838, William Henry Horsely writes: “ The British residency, a plain andmoderate sized structure, stands on an elevated spot, 2-3 miles east of the fort, commanding a view of the Thycad valley and surrounding country.” Government Women’s College, Model High School, Government Arts College, Swathi Thirunal Government Music College (once the office of the Assistant Resident) and so on are heritage institutions in Thycaud that are more than 100 years old or near about that.
Many other hills such as Puthenkotta hill (25m), a tiny one but conspicuous enough because it rises in a low plain near East Fort), Thiruvallam hill (or Chithranjali hills as it is renamed, 70m), Kallumala stone quarry near Peroorkada (80m), Randamada (133m), which is famous for sheet rocks, Valiamala (178m), Ottasekharamangalam (185m), Chathanpara (202m), and so on are also to be found in and around the city.
Towards Nedumangad and Peppara too there are many hills. Chemmunji Motta at 1700m is the source of the Karamana river, which quenches the thirst of the city.
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