Visit to Tanjore - City of Temples in India

The most of the part of South India is full of cities having ancient and holy temples of Hindu religion. Tanjore is one such city, situated in the State of Tamilnadu, in India. Luckily, I had an opportunity to visit this ancient, historical city of Tanjore during my last visit to India during December 2009 with my family. We really enjoyed our visit to Tanjore and hence, decided to share our visit with all my AC friends and readers.

Tanjore is well connected by air, rail, and road from most of the major cities of India. The nearest airport of Trichi is situated at the distance of 36 miles. There are daily flights available from Mumabi and Bangalore for Trichi. We reached Tanjore by train from Mumabi. This train journey of 16 hours in an airconditioned class was really comfortable as we could see the beautiful interior of South India. Tanjore is spread in around 30 square kilometer area and is having the population of around 250000. Tanjore was the capital of Chaula Kingdom in the sixteenth century. Chaula Kings were encouraging arts like music, painting, and the architecture during their rule. That is why the city of Tanjore is full of ancient temples. The most important temple here at Tanjore is Bruhadeshwar Temple. This temple was built by famous Chaula King Rajaram . This temple is the jewel of India in true sense. This temple is unique as it has 200 feet high dome. This dome was made from single piece of black garnite stone, having weight of around 165000 lb. The slope of four miles was made to shift this single piece dome in its position like the one used in making pyramids of Egypt. This Lord Shiva temple is around 1000 years old. The next place to visit is Palace of Tanjore. This palace was built in the year 1580. This Palace has the most beautiful design and the day to day items used by the royal family have been stored here for the view of visitors. The famous Golden seat of the Chaula King is worth seeing in the main hall of this palace. The Rajaram Chaula Art museum is the next spot that must be visited. There are around fifty bronze statues of various Hindu gods made during the ninth century. However, the most important aspect of this museum is ancient handwritten books. Around 3000 such books written on Tadpatra are really worth seeing here. These books are around 2000 years old and are considered invaluable. The musical palace is the next interesting place at Tanjore. This palace is constructed on the princeple of reflection of sound. If anybody plays music in one room, the same music can be heard in all the rooms of the palace.

There are some interesting excursions available for the tourists near the city of Tanjore. The town of Tirunallar is around 30 miles away from Tanjore. There is an ancient Lord Shani Dev temple here. Shani Dev temples are rarely found and hence, the tourists like to visit this unique temple. The beautiful Roman Catholic church at the town of Velnakanni, situated around 60 miles away from Tanjore, is also worth visiting. There are many hotels available at Tanjore for the visitors. Hotel Ganesha, Hotel Oriental Towers, Hotel Kartik, Hotel Sangam, and Hotel Royal Park are some of the reputed hotels at Tanjore. We stayed at Hotel Sangam, situated in the heart of the city. It offers excellant two star facilities to visitors at the rate of around Rs.2500 ($55) per day for a nice double room. These rates exclude all the meals. The stay of around 2-3 days may be sufficent at Tanjore to cover most of the site seeing places. The traditional South Indian food delicasies are really very tasty and must be tried during the visit.

If you are interested in Indian history, you will certainly enjoy the visit to this historical city of Tanjore. I am sure this article shall encourage many of my AC friends and readers to visit this historical city of Tanjore during their next visit to India.