Shimla Homestay – An artist den

In June when we wanted to spend 1 week away from Mumbai’s hustle bustle and time off from our work, we decided to rest it out in Shimla. Our agenda for this trip was to relax in a nice homestay, enjoy the hilly views, take a walk in the evening, pop in some cafe and enjoy lovely local food. This being our agenda, we decided to look for an amazing homestay which had great view and cozy ambience.

We happen to find the Perfect HomeStay for our time in Shimla. This 100+ years old home of a local family that have contributed and witnessed the slow changing life in Shimla. The home has mainly 2 bedrooms for travellers. There is one big hall that can have atleast 25 people sitting by a fireplace. I can picture how the family in its young days would have used to entertain guests and the room would have witnessed conversations of all types from politics, to government, to traditions, to trends, to changing cultural landscape, and to art. The hall leads to dinning area which an big dinning table indoors surrounded by paintings and another small table in open balcony overlooking the valley ideal for chair time and summer days. The bedroom on 1st floor is simple room with bed, balcony and a fireplace. One of the bedroom has an open balcony while the other bedroom has a window seating arrangement.

And then the star of the stay is “The Attic” – its a beautiful attic straight out of novels. The attic is big room thats over the entire house. It has a walk-in library filled with books of all kind, couple of sofas to lounge while you soak up the space or decide to take a nap, couple of tables for painting, wiritng, reading, and a diwan overlooking valley. It also has a small temple and tons of paintings stashed away in the corners everywhere. The attic also has painting stached in every nook. The attic was a candyland for us and we spent most of our time here chilling, reading, painting and pondering. We would start our day at 5:30am and come straight to the attic with some warm tea and local fruits. We read books from their library, painted flowers of Shimla, saw Shimla people waking up to mornings in their way, pondered over life, and ended up dreaming to build a home with an attic like this.