Built in the 13th century, Belagavi Fort is a large moated fort in the heart of the city, with temples, mosques and military buildings inside. Among them are the Safa Masjid, built in 1519, and the Kamal Basadi, a Jain temple with a remarkable lotus-carved ceiling. Mahatma Gandhi was briefly held here during the freedom struggle.

The fort at Kittur is famous as the home of Rani Chennamma, the queen who led an armed revolt against the British East India Company in 1824, one of the first such uprisings in India. The ruins of the palace and fort walls stand today, with a museum displaying weapons, coins and relics from her time.

At Gokak in Belagavi district the Ghataprabha river drops about 52 metres over a horseshoe of rock, a shape that has earned it comparisons with Niagara on a smaller scale. A hanging bridge about 200 metres long crosses the gorge just below the falls and gives the best view. The site has an industrial history too: a textile mill here was powered by one of the earliest hydroelectric installations in India, commissioned in 1887. Old Chalukya-era temples stand on the rocks around the river. The falls are full and loud from July to October and can slow to a trickle in summer.

On a hill near Saundatti, the temple of the goddess Renuka Yellamma is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in north Karnataka and Maharashtra. Its main festivals draw lakhs of devotees, especially on full-moon days in the months of Magha and Margashira. The temple, built in a mix of Chalukya and Rashtrakuta styles, overlooks the Malaprabha river.

A lake on the edge of Hubballi, built about a century ago, Unkal Lake has a statue of Swami Vivekananda on an island at its centre and gardens around its shore. Boating and evening walks make it a favourite with local families, and the sunsets over the water are popular.

Lakkundi, a village in Gadag district, holds more than fifty temples and around a hundred stepwells from the time of the Western Chalukyas, when it was a prosperous town with its own mint. The Kasivisvesvara temple is the finest, a twin shrine with two sanctums facing each other and some of the most intricate lathe-turned pillars and door frames in the Deccan. The Brahma Jinalaya is the largest Jain temple of the Chalukya period in Karnataka. Carved stepwells such as Musukina Bhavi show how the town managed its water. Lakkundi is about 12 km from Gadag and is often combined with Dambal and Itagi on a Chalukya temple circuit.

An 11th-century Western Chalukya temple in Gadag, the Trikuteshwara complex has three lingas on a single stone in its main shrine and a shrine to the goddess Saraswati with remarkably carved pillars. Its stone screens and carved ceilings are some of the finest of the period.