Kolkata Travel Guide: Places to Visit, Durga Puja and Getting Around

West Bengal Tourism calls Kolkata the City of Joy, and its sights are spread across the river, the Maidan and the old north of the city. Group them by area: the Maidan and south for museums, the riverside and Howrah for bridges, ghats and markets, and College Street in the north for books.

Victoria Memorial

Lord Curzon planned the Victoria Memorial Hall as a memorial to Queen Victoria, and the white marble building now serves as a museum and art gallery. West Bengal Tourism counts 28,934 artefacts and 3,900 paintings in it, with gardens around. The galleries are open from 10 am to 6 pm and closed on Mondays and national holidays, while the gardens open from 6 am to 6 pm every day. Tickets are sold online and at the counters, so buy them from the Hall's own site.

Howrah Bridge

The balanced cantilever bridge over the Hooghly was commissioned in 1943 and replaced a pontoon bridge linking Kolkata and Howrah. West Bengal Tourism gives its length as 2,150 feet with a single span of 1,500 feet, and says it carries about 100,000 vehicles and possibly more than 150,000 pedestrians a day, which it calls one of the busiest cantilever bridges in the world. Mallick Ghat, with its flower market, lies just beneath it on the Hooghly bank, and the bridge is best seen from the ghats.

Mallick Ghat flower market

Below the Howrah Bridge, this market is more than 165 years old and the biggest wholesale flower market in eastern India. It starts around 4 am, with sellers from across Kolkata and nearby areas bringing marigolds, lotuses, lilies, roses and garlands, and it is livelier in the festival and wedding seasons. Go at dawn, as trading starts around 4 am.

Kumortuli

The potters' quarter in the north makes clay idols for Kolkata's festivals and also exports them. West Bengal Tourism says that watching master craftsmen shape the deities one by one from wet clay is the heart of a visit, and that Kumortuli's fame grew in the era of community Durga Puja. It also holds one of the oldest Durga Pujas in the city. The weeks before the festival are when the idols are being made, so time a visit then.

Prinsep Ghat and Millennium Park

Prinsep Ghat, built in 1841, has a Palladian porch added after the death of James Prinsep in 1843, with gardens, lawns and benches by the river. Small boats can be hired there for a ride on the Hooghly. Millennium Park runs 2.5 km along Strand Road between Vidyasagar Setu and Howrah Bridge, with landscaped gardens, slides and swings for children. Outram Ghat, near Howrah Bridge, is a quieter spot for early-morning and evening walks.

Indian Museum

Founded in 1814, the Indian Museum calls itself the earliest and largest multipurpose museum in the Indian subcontinent. Its galleries include Bharhut, Gandhara, Egyptian, bronze, coin, textile and natural-history collections, and West Bengal Tourism mentions an Egyptian mummy and a Buddhist stupa among the highlights. It is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm and closed on Mondays. Tickets can be booked on the museum's site, with separate rates for adults, children under 18 and foreign nationals.

College Street and the Indian Coffee House

College Street, known as Boi Para, runs from Bowbazar towards Mahatma Gandhi Road and is the largest book market in India, according to West Bengal Tourism, with secondhand books in great numbers. Calcutta University, Presidency College and Medical College are on it. Above all, visit the Indian Coffee House, a meeting place of students, writers and politicians that was converted to a coffee house in 1942, and which serves affordable snacks and coffee.

Park Street and its cemetery

Park Street has been Kolkata's main evening zone since the British era, with restaurants and clubs, and the street is lit up for Diwali, Christmas and New Year's Eve. The Park Street Cemetery, ceremonially opened in 1767, is one of the first non-church cemeteries in the world and holds graves of Sir William Jones, founder of the Asiatic Society, and the poet Henry Derozio. Sandstone tombs in Gothic and Indo-Saracenic styles stand among tall trees.

Jorasanko Thakur Bari

Jorasanko, in north Kolkata, is the ancestral home of the Tagore family and the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore. It is also where Gaganendranath and Abanindranath Tagore, founders of the Bengal School of Art, lived. The house is now part of Rabindra Bharati University, and its Rabindra Bharati Museum, founded in 1961, tells stories from the lives of the Tagores. Visit it with an interest in the Bengal Renaissance and the Brahmo Samaj.

Temples and pilgrim sites

Kalighat is regarded as the holiest of the Shakti Peethas, with a gold-tongued image of Kali, on the banks of the Adi Ganga. The Birla Mandir in Ballygunge, opened in 1996, is built in white marble and sandstone. Across the river at Belur, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission opens from 6.30 to 11.30 am and 3.30 to 8.30 pm. Our article on temples in Kolkata lists more.

Chinatown

Chinese families settled in Kolkata in the 18th century, and the Tangra and Topsia area in the east is still known for Buddhist temples, heritage buildings, a Chinese pastry shop and restaurants serving food kept alive by the families there. West Bengal Tourism mentions India's only Chinese Kali temple, which offers noodles as prasad. Chinese New Year brings lion and dragon dances.

Science City and Eco Park

For families, Science City is the largest science centre in the Indian subcontinent, with the Dynamotion Hall, 3D space rides and a cable car. Eco Park, spread over 475 acres, is one of the largest urban parks in India, with a lake, a butterfly garden, kayaking and cycling. The Birla Industrial and Technological Museum and the Nehru Children's Museum, with dolls from 92 countries, suit younger visitors too.

UNESCO inscribed Durga Puja in Kolkata on its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2021. It describes an annual festival in September or October marking the ten-day worship of the goddess Durga, beginning on Mahalaya, when eyes are painted onto the clay images, and ending on the tenth day, when the images are immersed in the river. Kolkata's neighbourhoods build large pavilions, and crowds walk between them. The date follows the lunar calendar and changes yearly.

Our Durga Puja experience in Kolkata is planned around a private guide who follows each year's most talked-about pandals, a vehicle for longer hops and a hotel within reach of the main circuits. It suits travellers happy to walk for hours among crowds, not those who want quiet or have limited mobility. Traffic slows considerably during the festival. Kolkata Metro has announced night-long services on the Blue and Green lines on Maha Saptami, Maha Ashtami and Maha Navami; check its notices for the current year. Our festival guide to Durga Puja covers the festival in more detail.

• By air: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, at Dum Dum, is about 17 km from the city centre. West Bengal Tourism calls it the largest airport in eastern India and a major centre for flights to the north-east.
• By train: Howrah and Sealdah are the two main termini; the Sundarban Tiger Reserve tells visitors to reach Kolkata by train at Sealdah or Howrah.
• By Metro from the airport: Metro Railway Kolkata inaugurated its Yellow Line on 22 August 2025, from Noapara to Jai Hind Bimanbandar, whose name means airport.

For Darjeeling and the hills, the gateways are Bagdogra airport and New Jalpaiguri station; read our Darjeeling travel guide. For the rest of the state, see our West Bengal travel guide.