Chennai Tourism
Chennai Travel Guide
Chennai,
the present gateway to the South of India, is, however, only about 350 years
old. Chennai is ever growing, changing and pulsating with new activities. The
city of today, one of the great metropolitan cities of the world, and the fourth
largest city in India, grew from the Fort that Francis Day and his superior
Andrew Cogan of East India Company built on a narrow spit of no-man's land that
Day's dubash Beri Thimanna negotiated with the local governor of the Vijayangar
Empire. The approximately 5-square kilometer sand strip Day was granted has
now grown into a city of about 170 sq.kms. with a population of about 6 million.
Chennai was the first British major settlement in India and it was here that
many who went on to build the Empire first learnt their trade. As a consequence,
the city is replete with much that is of significance in British Indian history.
But the much older settlements have stories to tell too, and so the city is
an amalgam of ancient and more modern history. Everywhere one goes in Chennai,
one can find history written in every name.
The particularly charming features of Chennai are its allegiance to ancient
traditions, no matter how modernised it has become and its willingness to spread
out further rather than develop into a multistorey concrete jungle. The result
is a widespread city still open to the skies; a green, airy city with several
vestiges of its rural past; a city that adheres to the leisurely tempo of the
life of a world of yesterday; a city whose values of the other day still survive
amidst the humdrum bustle of today; a city that still retains the charm, culture,
hospitality and courtesies of the ages.
In this gracious, spacious city there is much to see. A suggested tour round
the city is best completed by following this route: Fort St. George, Pantheon
Complex, Valluvar Kottam, St. Thomas Mount, Guindy National Park, the Shrines
of Mylapore and Triplicane, Government Estate, the Marina and Anna Salai, Newer
attractions are: theme parks such as Kishkinta, MGM Dizzy World and Little Folks,
Vandalur Zoo, VGP Golden Beach Resort, Crocodile Bank and Muttukadu Boat House.
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