A Travel Blog by Andrea Marchegiani

Fort Tirumayam is one of the two fortresses left in Tamil Nadu. The site is still little known, so much so that it is not even mentioned by the Lonely Planet: so I decided to collect the little avalaible information for the benefit of future visitors.

Thanjavur, the ancient capital of the Chola Empire, has a stunned vitality: it houses some of the most beautiful temples of Tamil Nadu, the largest statue of the Nandi bull in India and a giant whale skeleton preserved in the Royal palace. Maybe it doesn’t make much sense, but India is like that!

There are places you visit for a little over an hour but that you will remember forever. Kumbakonam, a strategic city in the Middle Ages and today little more than a crossroads of roads has been for me one of these.

What to see in Pondicherry if you have a few hours. A former French colonial city, Pondicherry is famous for its colonial-style residential neighbourhoods, beautiful Bougainville and amazing croissant cafés!

Discover Auroville, India, the hippie ecovillage where people live without money, searching for a life without hatred and judgment.

If you want to deepen your knowledge of Dravidian culture and fill your eyes with traditional religious architecture, you must visit Tiruvannamalai and attend the rites and processions in honor of Shiva.
The city was born on a sacred mountain, Arunachala, where Shiva is said to have manifested himself as a large fiery phallus.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984, Mammalapuram is a charming city. The site of Mamallapuram Hill, with the lighthouse and the numerous Shiva temples of the Pallava dynasty, all entirely carved into the rock. The incredible butter ball of Krishna, a rock hovering over a slope which remains in balance despite all the laws of physics. The sultry warmth and hospitality of the people while I visit Arjuna’s Penance, one of the most important bas-reliefs in India.

The capital of Tamil Nadu welcomes me by making things clear: there is no room for haste here. Everything takes its time -if you stop trying to plan everything, the reward is just around the corner. I am enchanted by an Odissi dance show and spend a morning among alligators and cobras in a nature reserve outside the city.

I visit two brick factories, one in the far north and one in the far south of the Indian subcontinent. The work is still manual and the labor is definitely underpaid. Since the early 2000s, several international scandals have hit Indian brick factories.