It’s the Finale Time!! This is the final post on the Kolkata Series – places you must see in Kolkata. It has been a real fun working on this series. I got to know my city even more deeply. Being a travel enthusiast the idea of curating a post about the interesting places in Kolkata came to my mind, which will be of help for the fellow travellers visiting the city of joy. This places you must see in Kolkata series has been a very satisfying to me. I took immense pleasure in curating this series. Now since I’m concluding this series with this post that will open door for me to take a look at other cities to explore and share the same with other travel enthusiasts and active readers of my blog. So stay tuned for that.
Without making much of introduction let’s take a dive and explore the 6th layer of Kolkata’s five more interesting places. This will be a mix n match kind of places that I’ll cover in this post.
National Library: The National Library Kolkata is the largest library in India in terms of volume and the library of public records in India. The library operates under the Department of Culture under the umbrella of the Ministry of Tourism & Culture, Government of India. The library houses more than 2.2 million books. The National Library Kolkata was established in 1953 and is located in the Belvedere Estate in Kolkata. The library is open on all seven days from 10 AM to 6 PM.
Nandan: Nandan is a film and cultural centre in Kolkata, which is sponsored by the West Bengal government. Nandan was officially inaugurated on 2 September 1985 by the renowned film-maker Satyajit Ray. The complex is a highly popular destination for the young and the aged people alike and not just a modern cinema and cultural complex. Nandan had been one of the main venues hosting Kolkata International Film Festival, until 2010.
Indian Coffee House: Indian Coffee House Kolkata is one of the most popular and favourite hang-out places of the people in Kolkata. The Indian Coffee House has many branches in Kolkata including College Street, Central Avenue, Kolkata Medical College and Jadavpur. The College Street Coffee House is the most popular among all, which is located on Bankim Chatterjee Street. The history says the College Street Coffee House was founded in April 1876 in the Albert Hall. The renowned people like Rabindranath Tagore and Subhas Chandra Bose were frequent visitors of this famous cafe. The cafe is a meeting place for artists, poets, literati and many other people from the world of art and culture. Apart from West Bengal Indian Coffee House is also located in other places of India like Kerala, Karnataka, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh.
Botanical Garden: The famous Botanical Garden in Shibpur in Howrah district of West Bengal is one of the interesting places you must see in Kolkata. Though it is not in the city of Kolkata, the Botanical Garden is counted in the list of must visit places in Kolkata. The original name of the garden is Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden but most commonly known and Calcutta Botanical Garden. The garden has a wide variety of very rare species of plants with a collection of more than 12000 species. This is a no-plastic zone and The Great Banyan, a huge banyan tree, is a popular landmark in the garden. It is regarded as the largest tree in the world with more than 330 meters in circumference and forms the second largest canopy in the world. The garden is open from 5 AM to 7 PM throughout the week.
Tangra Chinatown: If you are a foodie and like to eat Chinese cuisine then you just cannot miss visiting Tangra Chinatown when you have a trip to Kolkata. This is a neighbourhood in the eastern part of Kolkata that is regarded as the locality of ethnic Chinese Indian nationals. The area is noted for the Chinese cuisine restaurants, which is visited by the flock of people who like Chinese and Indian Chinese cuisines. Food from Tangra Chinatown is a discrete variety of traditional Hakka Chinese cuisine that is adapted to the Indian ingredients and the Bengali palate. You have innumerable choices to hop into different Chinese restaurants in this area.
Here we come to the end of this places you must see in Kolkata series. I tried to cover most important and interesting places in Kolkata through the 6 series posts. I hope you will like the posts and if you have not read through the last 5 posts in this series you can get them in the below links.
Novemberschild
It’s a battle between the old and the new, the west versus the east and even socialism versus capitalism . The Indian Coffee House has been around for more than 50 years, but as the number of modern cafes proliferate the co-operative based business is feeling the squeeze of competition. Most of the political movements in independent India started from here…it has a history.
Sham
Thank you for the quick note. Yet this place does have a history and is one of the most happening place in Kolkata.
Ranjini S
Ahh yes! I have been to the ICH in Kerala. The Banyan tree has all my attention. I would love to see that canopy!
Sham
Yes that canopy is pretty huge and you would enjoy your time spent in the lap of nature. I had been to the Botanical Garden few times and enjoyed my time 🙂