This gallery contains 35 photos.
The name “Pettah” is derived from the Sinhalese “pita-kotuwa”, which means “outside the fort”. This exactly describes what Pettah was and is today. In the Dutch era, this area was known as the “oudestad”, or Old Town. Where the Fort … Continue reading
This gallery contains 35 photos.
Fort, or Colombo Fort, is one of the oldest built-up areas in downtown Colombo, having been established by the Portuguese in the early 1500s as a fortified port settlement. Once there were actually walls that surrounded the city. Part of … Continue reading
This gallery contains 32 photos.
Setting sail from Danish Tranquebar, we wend our ship southward to the jewelled isle of Ceylon (today’s Sri Lanka), situated at the southern tip of the Indian Subcontinent. We are bound for the port city of Colombo, on the southwestern … Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
In Tranquebar, I stayed at the excellent Bungalow on the Beach, run by The Neemrana Group. It was the closest one could get to a Grand Hotel in the town, and I wasn’t disappointed. The origins of the building aren’t … Continue reading
This gallery contains 29 photos.
From the Danish Quarter of Tranquebar, we amble down Post Office Road to explore the Tamil Quarter. Like in Pondicherry, the Tamil Quarter is also segregated into a Hindu Quarter and a Muslim Quarter. The walk down Post Office takes … Continue reading
This gallery contains 28 photos.
In this first of two walking tours of the historic Danish town of Tranquebar, Dream Of A City literally takes you, the reader, down King’s Street – the high street in Tranquebar – where we point out the main sights. … Continue reading
This gallery contains 22 photos.
To the south of Pondicherry sits a somewhat laidback and half-forgotten port city, which for more than 200 years, was the capital of a modest Danish colonial empire in India. This is the city of Tranquebar, or Trankebar in Dansk. … Continue reading
This gallery contains 17 photos.
La grande dame de l’ancienne scène d’hospitalité à Pondichéry, c’était le Grand Hôtel d’Europe, établi par Monsieur E. Magry (qui était un de la communauté créole de la ville) en 1891. Malheureusement l’hôtel a été fermé en 1996 et puis, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 27 photos.
The Tamil Quarter (or erstwhile “Black Town”) of Pondicherry sits to the West of the French Quarter. It was separated from the latter by a Grand Canal that bisected downtown Pondicherry, and still runs through the city today. In size, … Continue reading
This gallery contains 36 photos.
We begin our tour of Pondicherry in the Ville Blanche, or White Town. This is the town the French built, and it as Gallic and Mediterranean as it can be, thousands of miles away from Marseille. Most of the buildings … Continue reading
Dream Of A City 