This gallery contains 17 photos.
Nadesar Palace is a dream of a boutique hotel. First built by the East India Company in the late 1700s, it was then taken over by the Maharajah Prabhu Narain Singh of the Royal House of Benares from 1889, and … Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
Further inland from the river, beyond the ghats, lie two different parts of Benares. The first is its sprawling, bustling old town; the second, lying even further afield, is the Cantonment, built by the British when they too, found their … Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
Part Two of this wander through the legendary ghats of Benares takes in Dashashmewadh Ghat to Panchganga (“five river”) Ghat. Beyond Panchganga, I venture no further, nor would the river boats take me onwards. There are three major ghats here worth … Continue reading
This gallery contains 26 photos.
The main event in the sacred city of Benares, are its supposedly 87 ghats, which the grand tourist can take in from end to end in a single, three hour walk, or an hour-long boat-ride on the Ganges River. I … Continue reading
This gallery contains 19 photos.
Benares is old. Older than the other cities on this Grand Tour. Older than most cities… It rises, like a mirage, on the west bank of the mighty Ganges River. It is a port city, but of souls first and … Continue reading
This gallery contains 14 photos.
No visit to Calcutta is complete without a day-trip to two of its most important Hindu temples and pilgrimage sites, and without a stroll along the city’s waterfront from Prinsep Ghat to Babughat – perhaps the most Romantic spot in … Continue reading
This gallery contains 34 photos.
Calcutta in its heyday was divided into two main districts – White Town, which was where the British and other Europeans lived their lives and did their business, and Black Town, which was where the local Bengalis resided. Some of … Continue reading
This gallery contains 38 photos.
The second part of my virtual tour of European, or “White” Town, Calcutta, has the armchair traveller exploring the two most fashionable thoroughfares in Calcutta – Chowringhee Road (today’s Jawaharlal Nehru Road), which was the centre of the city’s cultural and … Continue reading
This gallery contains 31 photos.
Calcutta’s former European Town is a large, sprawling, highly-planned city that occupies much of the southern reaches of Central Kolkata today. At its heart is Fort William, the fortified, walled settlement that the English East India Company established here, along … Continue reading
This gallery contains 21 photos.
Calcutta (Kolkata) is the first stop on my third segment of the Grand Tour of the East. The capital of the province of West Bengal, and the cultural capital of Bengalis worldwide, it is a worthy first stop, and quite possibly … Continue reading
Dream Of A City 