Tamilnadu has its major share of most famous beautiful temples in India with great architecture. Recently iam fortunate to travel to Tanjore to attend my friend's marriage. I will never miss an opportunity to roam, as i love travelling, exploring and visiting different places.
Only difficulty is travel time! From Hyderabad to Tanjore through Chennai, it takes 20 hours by train.. Gosh!! Anyway, we stopped in Chennai on the way, so it's not a continuous travel.
We reached Tanjore or Tanjavur by 6 AM. The railway station construction also is peculiar, like a temple dome. After getting ready, we had sumptuous tamilnadu style breakfast (Idli, vada, pongal, sweet, sambar, chutneys) and started to Big temple (Brihadeswara temple) by cab.
The important thing that you notice in temple is its surrounding wall which resembles a wall for fort/ palace. Architecture and the clarity of carvings are so good that it doesn't look like its built in 10th century. The temple dome rests on a single granite rock. The gigantic lingam and nandi are major attractions. It was built by Raja raja chola. Later, we went to The palace, Darbar mahal, Sarja madi, Bell tower, Grand Canon and handicrafts exhibition. These places are not maintained well by government even though they are charging pretty high price for entrance tickets. Tanjavur is famous for good paintings and we can see art everywhere in the Palace which is turned to museum now. Weather is not that comfortable as temperature is as high as that in Chennai.
There are few more places around Tanjavur of tourist attraction like Thiruvarur (Place where Thyagaraja swamy was born), Thiruvayur on the banks of Kaveri river (Where Thyagaraja aradhana festivals will take place every year) and Trichy or Tiruchirappally (which is also a famous tourist destination). If you are interested in Oldest temples, architectures, paintings etc, this might be one of the best places to visit.
Until next time..