Tamil Nadu — Chennai, Mahabalipuram, Pondicherry & the Chola Temples

A sand strip running roughly 13 kilometres along the Bay of Bengal, one of the longest urban beaches anywhere. The promenade is lined with memorials and statues, and the undertow is strong enough that swimming is not allowed.

• Walk the promenade at sunset
• Try sundal and bajji from the carts
• See the lighthouse and the memorials along the front

A Shiva temple in the heart of old Mylapore, rebuilt in the sixteenth century after the original coastal shrine was lost. The eastern gopuram rises about 37 metres and is covered in painted stucco figures; the tank and the flower market in the surrounding streets are as much a part of the visit as the temple.

• Look up at the painted gopuram figures
• Walk the tank on the west side
• Browse the flower and bronze shops in the temple streets

The first English fortress in India, begun in 1644, and the seed the city grew around. The state legislature still works inside the walls. The fort museum holds East India Company weapons, uniforms and portraits, and St Mary's Church in the courtyard is the oldest Anglican church east of Suez.

• Fort museum galleries
• See St Mary's Church and its gravestones
• Walk the ramparts facing the sea

A museum complex begun in 1851, best known for its bronze gallery — the finest collection of Chola-period cast bronzes anywhere, including several Nataraja figures. The red brick Indo-Saracenic buildings are worth the visit on their own.

• Bronze gallery
• Amaravati sculpture panels
• The old theatre building in the compound

A white neo-Gothic basilica built by the Portuguese and rebuilt by the British in 1896, raised over what is held to be the tomb of the apostle Thomas. It is one of only a handful of churches in the world built above an apostle's grave.

• See the underground tomb chapel
• Look at the stained glass
• Walk down to the beach behind the church

Five monolithic shrines, each cut downwards from a single granite boulder and each in a different architectural style. They are named after the Pandava brothers and Draupadi, though the naming came long after the carving. Several were never finished, which makes the cutting method easy to read.

• Compare the five roof styles
• See the carved elephant, lion and bull
• Look at the unfinished surfaces

A relief roughly 30 metres wide and 15 metres high cut into two adjoining boulders, one of the largest open-air rock reliefs in the world. Gods, sages, animals and a famous line of elephants converge on a natural cleft down which water was once channelled to represent the Ganga.

• Find the elephant family and the ascetic cat
• See Krishna's Butter Ball on the slope above
• Walk up to the Ganesha Ratha

A structural granite temple built around 700 CE right at the water's edge, unusual for holding shrines to both Shiva and Vishnu. Centuries of salt wind have softened the carving, and the compound wall of seated bulls is one of the most photographed things in Tamil Nadu. The whole group at Mahabalipuram is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

• Late afternoon light on the towers
• The row of seated Nandi bulls
• Walk down to the beach behind the temple

The old White Town, east of the canal, kept its French street names and its mustard-yellow walled houses with louvred shutters and bougainvillaea. The best of it is the few blocks around Rue Dumas and Rue Romain Rolland, all walkable in an hour or two.

• Walk Rue Romain Rolland and Rue Suffren
• Coffee in a courtyard café
• See the French war memorial on the seafront

The ashram founded by Sri Aurobindo in 1926 and later led by the Mother. The main house holds their flower-covered samadhi in a quiet courtyard, and silence is kept throughout. Photography is not permitted inside.

• Sit for a few minutes at the samadhi
• Visit the ashram bookshop
• Walk on to the nearby handmade paper unit

A rocky, roughly 1.5 kilometre seafront rather than a swimming beach, closed to traffic each evening. The Gandhi statue, the old lighthouse and the French war memorial all stand along it.

• Evening walk when the road shuts
• See the Gandhi statue and its pillars
• Sunrise from the rocks if you are up early

The township was founded as a place where people could live without nationality or religion, and its centre is the Matrimandir — a gold-clad sphere holding a meditation chamber. Most visitors see it from the designated viewing point about a kilometre from the visitor centre; entry inside needs a pass booked at least a day ahead and is limited.

• Walk to the Matrimandir viewing point
• Visitor centre exhibition on the township
• Buy from the Auroville craft and food units

A Gothic revival church built by French missionaries in the early twentieth century, in a deep rose and white. Twenty-eight stained glass panels along the nave show scenes from the life of Christ.

• See the stained glass along the nave
• Look at the twin spires from the street
• Attend a Tamil-language service if timing allows

A sandbar beach reached only by boat from the Chunnambar backwater, about eight kilometres south of town. The ferry runs through a mangrove creek and takes around twenty minutes; the beach itself is wide, clean and has basic shade huts.

• Backwater ferry through the mangroves
• Swim off the sandbar
• Late lunch at the boathouse

The temple of Shiva as Nataraja, lord of the dance, and one of the oldest continuously worshipped complexes in the south. The gopurams carry carved panels of all 108 karanas of Bharatanatyam, which makes it a reference work for the dance form as much as a temple.

• Find the carved dance karanas on the gopurams
• See the golden-roofed Chit Sabha
• Walk the pillared halls around the tank

A twelfth-century Chola temple near Kumbakonam, smaller than the Thanjavur temple but finer in its detail. The front mandapa is built as a stone chariot with wheels and horses, and some of the steps once produced musical notes when struck.

• See the stone chariot mandapa
• Look at the miniature friezes along the base
• Photograph the carved balustrades

Built by Rajaraja Chola I and finished around 1010 CE, the temple has a vimana rising about 66 metres — for its time the tallest in India — and a single-block Nandi some six metres long facing the shrine. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed as one of the Great Living Chola Temples, and it has been in worship for a thousand years.

• Walk the full courtyard for the vimana view
• See the monolithic Nandi
• Read the Rajaraja inscriptions along the plinth

A sprawling palace built in stages by the Nayaks and then the Marathas. It houses the Saraswathi Mahal Library, one of the oldest working libraries in Asia, and a bronze gallery with Chola-period figures, plus a bell tower and a durbar hall with painted ceilings.

• Durbar hall and its painted ceiling
• Bronze gallery
• Climb the bell tower for the town view

Set on an island between the Cauvery and the Kollidam, this is the largest functioning temple complex in the world, with 21 gopurams inside seven concentric walls. The southern tower is the tallest temple gateway in Asia. The outer enclosures are ordinary streets with shops and homes; the inner ones are strictly temple.

• Walk in through the successive gateways
• See the Hall of a Thousand Pillars
• Look up at the painted southern gopuram

The temple of Meenakshi and Sundareswarar, rebuilt on a grand scale under the Nayak rulers from the sixteenth century. Fourteen gopurams are covered in thousands of painted stucco figures, and the complex includes a pillared hall and the Golden Lotus tank. The evening ceremony, when the image of Sundareswarar is carried to Meenakshi's chamber for the night, is worth staying for.

• The painted gopurams from all four streets
• Golden Lotus tank and the Thousand Pillar Hall
• The night procession ceremony before closing