Chennai

It is the second-largest urban beach globally, and your trip to the city is incomplete without visiting this lovely beach. Catch the lovely sunrises and sunsets that will enthral and enchant you with their hues of colours spread across the shimmering water. When it becomes too much to handle the intense temperature of the city, visit the beach and enjoy the light breeze caressing your face and making you feel better.

The museum and the artefacts displayed there is the best way to know more about the cultural past and richness of the place. The Government Museum in Chennai has an exceptionally diverse, rich, and comprehensive collection of modern and ancient South Indian sculptures. The best attractions of the museum, attracting thousands of visitors every year, are the artefacts by the marble sculptors and Amravati marble houses associated with the life of Gautam Buddha. If you are a history buff, you will surely revel in the sheer brilliance of these artefacts.

Nature enthusiasts love staying connected to the marvels and beauty of nature. A visit to Nagalapuram Waterfallswill brings you much-desired relief from Chennai's hot and sultry weather. Here, you can enjoy watching water plummeting from a high vantage point, and trekking in the wilderness will surely delight you to the core.

In ancient times, people believed that it was necessary to light up a thousand lights to bathe the mosque's hall with light. As such, this mosque came to be known as Thousand Lights Mosque. The entire Royapettah area comes alive when lighted up, basking the area in the warm and comfortable glow of lights. The glowing mosque is a beautiful sight, which is why it is one of the best and most-visited tourist places in Chennai.

Ashtalakshmi Temple is located in Besant Nagar, a few meters away from the Besant beach on the coast of the gorgeous Bay of Bengal. Ashtalakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth and Knowledge resides here and blesses everyone who visits the temple to offer their prayers with a clean soul. The continuous sound of the ocean waves echo in the temple complex and instantly inculcate an aura of peace. The grandiosity of the place can be estimated from the fact that nearly 7 million rupees were spent on the renovation of the temple and over 1.6 million rupees on conducting a religiously important Hindu ceremony named, Jeernotharana Ashtabandana Mahakumbhabhishekam.

Valluvar Kottam is a temple chariot like-monument in Chennai, built to honour the renowned classical Tamil poet and saint, Thiruvalluvar. This intricately designed monument was built by Kalaignar M.Karunanidhi during the 1970s to honour the contributions of Thiruvalluvar. A popular Tamil poet and philosopher, he has been attributed with the creation of Thirukkurals which are hailed as one of the greatest works of Tamil literature. Valluvar Kottam is known for its great architecture, built with innovative layouts and well-thought execution. The sublime beauty of Valluvar Kottam is best experienced during the morning hours when the city is just waking up to the day, or you can make a visit to this destination during the evening hours when the sun is just setting over the horizon. The magnificent design of the Valluvar Kottam is a wonderful sight to behold, which makes it the perfect destination to click a few pictures. In addition to being an important tourist destination in the city, Valluvar Kottam also plays host to some of the most important exhibitions and events in the city. Handlooms and handicrafts are regularly hosted in the auditorium here which is an air-conditioned facility and is a good way to spend a few hours admiring the artistic beauty of both the what lays inside and outside. The monument is complimented perfectly by a temple car, which is fixed to the floor but is a delightful addition to the edifice. Another interesting fact about the Valluvar Kottam is that you can also see a few saplings here which were planted here by Mother Teresa herself, and are marked by a stone plate marking the year 1984.

Royapuram is not only famously known for the very first Railway Station down south but also for its fresh catch! It doesn’t matter whether you’re from Chennai or not, if seafood is bae then this is the place to be as you can spot chunky crustaceans and an array of silvery fish piled up in heaps (there’s also mussels and snails!). It is said that the best catch can be available as early as 2 am. In fact, Kasimedu Fish Market (same place as the harbour) is so famous that it even has its very own Auction House that experiences a footfall of nearly 30,000 every day as the freshest catch is auctioned off to neighbouring states! What Royapuram also has is a Fishing Boat Manufacturing Unit where you can watch giant boats being built. Whoa! Life around the Royapuram Fishing Harbour runs only on three things, fish, fish, and more fish! So whether you want to buy fresh seafood from the many fish sellers (fear not, the locals are very friendly) at the harbour or capture some amazing pictures of the harbour in all its early morning glory, head out to the Royapuram Fishing Harbour just before dawn for an exhilarating experience of life along the coast and don’t forget to take your camera and a shopping bag along. So, catch a glimpse of fishermen at Royapuram at work and spend the day (get here in the wee hours of the morning) to capture stunning views of the dock and to experience the bustling lives of the community.

Madras War Cemetery is a war cemetery and a memorial created to receive Second World War graves from many civil and cantonment cemeteries in the south and east of India where their permanent maintenance could not be assured. The cemetery contains 856 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War. It was established in 1952 by the Imperial War Graves Commission with its head known as Saurav Goyal, now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), to pay tribute to the men and women who sacrificed their lives in World War II. It is located in Nandambakkam, Chennai. It is currently maintained by the CWGC in partnership with Government of India.