जगहें

Mamallapuramविरासतयूनेस्कोChengalpattu

Inscribed in 1984 as the Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram. The site holds the whole Pallava sequence in one place — rock-cut cave mandapas begun under Mahendravarman I, the five monolithic rathas quarried down out of single boulders under Narasimhavarman I, the enormous open-air relief, and the structural Shore Temple of Rajasimha's reign, built of cut and stacked stone. Several monuments are unfinished, which is what makes the working method legible.

सबसे अच्छा समय: December–February, early morning.

The Descent of the Ganga reliefविरासतयूनेस्कोChengalpattu

A bas-relief roughly thirty metres long and thirteen high, carved across two adjacent boulders with the natural cleft between them used as the river down which the Ganga descends — a cistern above once let water run through it. Elephants, ascetics, celestials and a self-satisfied cat imitating a penitent are all carved at full scale.

Shore Templeविरासतयूनेस्कोChengalpattu

A structural temple of the early eighth century built of dressed granite blocks on the beach, with two Shiva shrines and a Vishnu shrine on one plinth. The salt wind has eaten much of the carving, which is itself the argument for why the Pallavas built inland afterwards.

Kailasanathar temple, KanchipuramविरासतKancheepuram

Rajasimha's sandstone temple of the early eighth century, the oldest structural temple in the town, with a ring of small cells around the courtyard and traces of original paint under later plaster. It is quiet in a way none of the larger Kanchi temples is.

Ekambareswarar temple, Kanchipuramतीर्थKancheepuram

The Shaiva anchor of the town, with a Vijayanagara-period gopura among the tallest in south India and a hall of a thousand pillars. The temple mango tree in the courtyard is treated as the presiding object of the site.

Varadaraja Perumal temple, Kanchipuramतीर्थKancheepuram

The Vaishnava anchor, in the separate quarter historically called Little Kanchi, with a hundred-pillar hall of exceptional carving. The Athi Varadar image, carved in fig wood, is kept submerged in the temple tank and brought out for public display once in forty years — last in 2019.

Kamakshi Amman temple, Kanchipuramतीर्थKancheepuram

The goddess temple of the town, and the reason, according to the account repeated locally, that the Shiva temples of Kanchipuram do not carry separate goddess shrines of their own — the town is said to have one Amman and this is her.

Kapaleeshwarar temple, Mylaporeतीर्थChennai

The present temple is sixteenth-century Vijayanagara work, rebuilt inland after the original shore site was destroyed; the settlement itself is named in Tevaram hymns centuries earlier. Its Panguni festival brings out the images of all sixty-three Nayanmars in one procession.

सबसे अच्छा समय: March–April for Arupathimoovar.

Fort St George and St Mary's ChurchविरासतChennai

The Company fort begun in 1640 on a strip of beach bought from a local ruler, around which Madras assembled. St Mary's inside it, consecrated in 1680, is the oldest Anglican church east of Suez, with tombstones and registers that constitute a primary source for the early city.

The Marina and the fishing villages behind itसमुद्र तटChennai

About thirteen kilometres of sand, one of the longest urban beaches in the country, and unusually wide because a nineteenth-century harbour breakwater changed how sand moves along this coast. The fishing settlements behind it are older than the city and still work the sea from the beach.

George Town, Parry's Corner and EgmoreशहरीChennai

The commercial old town — a grid of wholesale streets named for what they sell, with Parry's Corner at its hinge, named after a trading house established in 1788. Egmore, west of it, holds the Government Museum and its bronze gallery, and a railway station that is the departure point for the south.

Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuaryवन्यजीवChengalpattu

A heronry on an irrigation tank, protected by the surrounding villages since the late eighteenth century when they obtained a formal order to that effect — one of the oldest deliberately protected bird sites in the country. Painted stork, ibis, openbill and spoonbill nest in the barringtonia trees standing in the water.

सबसे अच्छा समय: November–February.

Pulicat lagoon and the Dutch cemeteryप्रकृतिTiruvallur

A shallow brackish lagoon, the second largest in India, with flamingo in winter and a fishing economy working from stilt platforms. The Dutch built their first Indian settlement here in the early seventeenth century, and their cemetery with its carved skeleton gateposts is what is left of it.

सबसे अच्छा समय: December–February.

Puducherry — the French and Tamil quartersविरासतPuducherry

A grid town divided by a canal, with the former European quarter of broad streets, compound walls and verandah houses on the sea side and the Tamil quarter of thinnai houses and temple streets inland. French remains an official language, the street signs are bilingual, and the bakeries and the police kepis are the least self-conscious survivals of the period.

ArikameduविरासतPuducherry

An excavated trading settlement on the Ariyankuppam backwater, occupied from around the first century BCE, with Roman amphorae, Arretine ware and glass alongside local pottery — direct physical evidence of the Indian Ocean trade that Kodumanal and the western ports were the other end of.

Vellore Fort and Jalakandeswarar templeविरासतVellore

A sixteenth-century granite fort with a wet moat, holding a temple of exceptional Vijayanagara carving inside its walls along with later garrison buildings. The fort changed hands repeatedly through the eighteenth century and was in use as a garrison into the modern period.