Guides - Insight Guides South India

How To Use This E-Book

Getting around the e-book

This Insight Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration for your visit to South India, as well as comprehensive planning advice to make sure you have the best travel experience. The guide begins with our selection of Top Attractions, as well as our Editors Choice categories of activities and experiences. Detailed features on history, people and culture paint a vivid portrait of contemporary life in South India. The extensive Places chapters give a complete guide to all the sights and areas worth visiting. The Travel Tips provide full information on getting around, activities from culture to shopping to sport, plus a wealth of practical information to help you plan your trip.

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights in South India are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map] just tap this to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

Youll find hundreds of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of South India. Simply double-tap on an image to see it full-screen.

About Insight Guides

Insight Guides have more than 40 years experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce 400 full-colour titles, in both print and digital form, covering more than 200 destinations across the globe, in a variety of formats to meet your different needs.

Insight Guides are written by local authors, whose expertise is evident in the extensive historical and cultural background features. Each destination is carefully researched by regional experts to ensure our guides provide the very latest information. All the reviews in Insight Guides are independent; we strive to maintain an impartial view. Our reviews are carefully selected to guide you to the best places to eat, go out and shop, so you can be confident that when we say a place is special, we really mean it.

2017 Apa Digital (CH) AG and Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

South Indias Top 10 Attractions

From the temple ruins and former royal cities of the Deccan, to the soft shores of the Arabian Sea, South India is loaded with stellar attractions.

Top Attraction 1

Madurai . The great gopuras (gateway towers) of the Minaksi Temple loom over the low-rise cityscape of Madurai. More a holy city-within-a-city than a single shrine, this exuberantly decorated complex is the sacred heart of Tamil Hinduism. For more information, .

Getty Images

Top Attraction 2

Puducherry . An unlikely Gallic-flavoured enclave on the Coromandel Coast, Puducherry (still better known as Pondicherry) serves up a highly unlikely cultural fusion of croissants and curry against a charmingly careworn white-and-yellow streetscape. For more information, .

Getty Images

Top Attraction 3

Hampi . The unearthly, boulder-studded landscapes of Hampi are studded with the tawny relics of the Vijayanagara Empire. The whole setting looks like the work of giants, a surreal setting for an offbeat travellers scene. For more information, .

Getty Images

Top Attraction 4

Kochi . An ancient entrept on Keralas Malabar Coast, Kochi is still suffused with the scents of the spice trade and marked by influences from across the seas from ancient synagogues to Chinese fishing nets. For more information, .

iStock

Top Attraction 5

Keralan Backwaters . The watery soul of Kerala is to be found in the network of canals that spans the low-lying countryside inland from the Malabar Coast, accessed on luxurious houseboats or crowded local ferries. For more information, .

Shutterstock

Top Attraction 6

Hyderabad . Part modern Indian megalopolis, part dignified bastion of Persian-influenced Islamic culture in the South, at its old core Hyderabad is still a place of minarets, Urdu accents and sizzling kebabs. For more information, .

Britta Jachinski/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 7

Ooty . Its official name might now be Udhagamandalam, but the Queen of Hill Stations is still better known as Ooty, just as it was in the days when overheated British imperialists headed up to misty Nilgiris to escape the heat of the coast. For more information, .

Getty Images

Top Attraction 8

Mysuru . Perhaps the most spectacular royal palace in all India, the former seat of the rulers of Mysuru (Mysore) is an unrestrained extravaganza of Indo-Saracenic architecture and kingly opulence. For more information, .

Getty Images

Top Attraction 9

Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary . Of all the protected reserves amongst the steep, thickly-forested hillsides of the Western Ghats, Periyar is one of the most beautiful and most accessible, home to elephants, sambar deer and a handful of elusive tigers. For more information, .

Alamy

Top Attraction 10