Tourist Offices Government of India Tourist Office, 4 Shakespeare Sarani (tel 221402), is open 9 am to 6 pm Monday to Friday, 9 am to 1 pm Saturday, closed Sunday. Very efficient and helpful staff, good handout information. Book your ...

As is the case in the other gateway cities, accommodation in kolkata is comparatively expensive. Mid-range hotels tend to be over-priced and, if travelling on a budget you should listen in hard to the travellers’ grapevine. Cheap lodgings go up ...

kolkata hasn’t the choice or the variety of goods found in Bombay or Delhi, but there are some nice general buys to be found in the huge, covered New Market, behind Chowringhee. New Market is certainly the cheapest place in ...

City Sights Round-up (on foot, by taxi/rickshaw, full-day) St John’s Church–Writers’ Building–Birla Planetarium–St Paul’s Cathedral-Kalighat Temple–Mother Teresa’s Mission–Birla Academy of Art For day two, see a number of places that should be but aren’t included on the state conducted tours. ...

Howrah-Botanical Gardens-Belur Math-Ramakrishna Temple- Dakshineshwar-Jain Temple (morning)-Indian Museum- Nehru Children’s Museum-Victoria Memorial-Zoo (afternoon)Purely for orientation,  take one or both of the above bus (Rs75) tours. Neither is up to much: the guide’s talk is drowned out by traffic, too much ...

Central Calcutta is a compact, congested area sprawling up along the west bank of the Hooghly River, from the Zoological Gardens in the south up to Howrah Bridge some 5 km (3 miles) north. Over the bridge are some of ...

Close to the sea, and at low altitude, Calcutta suffers a lot of humidity. It is best visited November to February, though for colour, spectacle and culture come for the 3-week Durga Puja festival of September-October. But Calcuttans hold festivals ...

kolkata is concentrated India—an intense, vital and overcrowded city of 11 million inhabitants. It is the country’s largest city and one of the most populous in the world Here are gathered India’s finest artists and musicians, scholars and poets, and ...