Must-see attractions in Chennai (Madras)

  • Government Museum exterior, Chennai. Tamil Nadu, India (2004)

    Government Museum

    Chennai (Madras)

    Housed across from the striking British-built Pantheon Complex, this excellent museum is Chennai’s best. The big highlight is building 3, the Bronze…

  • Kapaleeshwarar Temple

    Chennai (Madras)

    Mylapore is one of Chennai's most characterful and traditional neighbourhoods; it predated colonial Madras by several centuries. Its Kapaleeshwarar Temple…

  • St Andrew's Church

    Chennai (Madras)

    This 1821 neoclassical Scottish Presbyterian church is one of India's most exquisite churches, rising up in leafy grounds in the middle of frenzied Egmore…

  • Wallajah Big Mosque

    Chennai (Madras)

    Built entirely of granite in 1795 by the Nawab of the Carnatic, and generally known simply as the Big Mosque.

  • San Thome Cathedral

    San Thome Cathedral

    Chennai (Madras)

    This soaring Roman Catholic cathedral, a stone's throw from the beach, was founded by the Portuguese in 1523, then rebuilt by the British in neo-Gothic…

  • Two people at Marina beach

    Marina Beach

    Chennai (Madras)

    Take an early morning or evening stroll (you don’t want to roast here at any other time) along the 3km-long main stretch of Marina Beach and you’ll pass…

  • Fort St George

    Chennai (Madras)

    Finished in 1653 by the British East India Company, the fort has undergone many facelifts. Inside the vast perimeter walls (the ramparts are 18th-century…

  • Kalakshetra Foundation

    Chennai (Madras)

    Founded in 1936, Kalakshetra is a leading serious school of Tamil classical dance and music (sponsoring many students from disadvantaged backgrounds), set…

  • Valluvar Kottam

    Chennai (Madras)

    This 1976 memorial honours the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar and his classic work, the 133-chapter Thirukural. Its most striking element is a 31m-high stone…

  • Tara Books

    Chennai (Madras)

    Producers of beautiful hand-printed books, this publishing company is based in southern Chennai. Visit its Book Building showroom, where you can browse,…

  • Vivekananda House

    Chennai (Madras)

    The marshmallow-pink Vivekananda House is interesting not only for its displays on the famous ‘wandering monk’, Swami Vivekananda, but also for its…

  • Book Building

    Chennai (Madras)

    Within this mural-covered space, Tara Books stages free exhibitions, author talks and workshops with visiting artists, and displays its own highly…

  • Sri Ramakrishna Math

    Chennai (Madras)

    The tranquil, flowery grounds of the Ramakrishna Math are a world away from Mylapore's chaos. Orange-robed monks glide around and there’s a reverential…

  • St Thomas Mount

    Chennai (Madras)

    The reputed site of St Thomas’ martyrdom in AD 72 rises in the southwest of Chennai, 2.5km north of St Thomas Mount train station. The Church of Our Lady…

  • Theosophical Society

    Chennai (Madras)

    Between the Adyar River and the coast, the 100-hectare grounds of the Theosophical Society provide a peaceful, green, vehicle-free retreat from the city…

  • Little Mount Church

    Chennai (Madras)

    For part of his South Indian sojourn, St Thomas supposedly lived in hiding in a cave just south of the Adyar River. This grottolike space can be entered…

  • Parthasarathy Temple

    Chennai (Madras)

    Built under the 8th-century Pallavas and unusually dedicated to Krishna (a form of Vishnu) as the charioteer Parthasarathy, this is one of Chennai's…

  • St Mary's Church

    Chennai (Madras)

    Completed in 1680, yellow-washed St Mary's Church was the first English church in Madras and is India's oldest surviving British-built church. Both Robert…

  • Fort Museum

    Chennai (Madras)

    The Fort Museum has exhibitions on Chennai's origins and the fort itself, and displays interesting military memorabilia and artwork from colonial times…

  • Armenian Church

    Chennai (Madras)

    A leafy, frangipani-scented haven in the midst of the George Town mayhem, the 18th-century Armenian Church is testament to the city's once-flourishing…

  • Madras High Court

    Chennai (Madras)

    Completed in 1892, this imposing red Indo-Saracenic structure is said to be the world's largest judicial building after the Courts of London. The central…

  • Luz Church

    Chennai (Madras)

    Styled with blue-and-white baroque elegance, pretty little palm-fringed Luz Church is Chennai's oldest European building, dating to 1516 – which also…

  • Madras Lighthouse

    Chennai (Madras)

    At the southern end of Marina Beach, the fourth-incarnation Madras Lighthouse is India's only one with a lift; it's ridiculously popular, but the…

  • AMM Screens

    Chennai (Madras)

    The printing workshop of Tara Books, where you can watch pages being silk-screened and hand-bound into books.

  • Thousand Lights Mosque

    Chennai (Madras)

    Chennai's main Shia mosque, built in 1810. Mostly useful as a landmark, as non-Muslims aren't allowed inside the buildings.

    • placement: fullWidth
    • path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
    • possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [300, 250], [320, 50], [1, 1],
    • targeting:
      {
        "position": "superzone"
      }