Kochi

Including : Chinese Fishing nets, St.Francis Church, Dutch Palace, Jewish Synagogue

Kochi is Kerala’s most cosmopolitan city. It is also its main trading centre for spices and seafood. Built around a salt water lagoon of the Arabian sea, kochi is in fact a collection of narrow islands and peninsulas. While mainland ernakulam boasts of concrete shopping malls and glitzy apartment buildings, Mattancherry and Fort kochi have an old World charm, with their blend of Dutch, Portuguese and English Bungalows and quaint narrow streets. The scenic location of Kochi ‘s natural harbour, surrounded by palm groves, green fields, inland lakes and backwaters, has enchanted visitors from across the globe for centuries. 

These huge cantilevered fishing nets are the legacy of one of the first visitors to the Malabar Costs. Erected here between 1350 and 1450 AD by traders from the court Kublai Khan, these nets are built of teak wood and bamboo poles.

Built in 1503 AD by Portuguese Fraciscan friars, this is India’s oldest European church. This was initially built of timber and later reconstructed in stone masonry. Vasco da Gama was buried here in 1524 before his remains were moved to Lisbon, Portugal.

Built by the Portuguese in 1557 and presented to Raja Veera Kerala Varma of Cochin, the palace was renovated in 1663 by the Dutch. The palace exhibits ancient murals from the epic Ramayana and Mahabaratha , Dutch maps of old Cochin, palanquins, coronation robs of erstwhile Maharajas of Cochin ,etc

Constructed in 1568, this is the oldest synagogue in the Commonwealth. Though it was destroyed in 1662, it was rebuilt two years later by the Dutch known for mid 18th century hand painted, willow patterned floor from Canton in China, a clock tower, Hebrew inscriptions on stone slabs, great scrolls of old testament, ancient scripts on copper plates, etc.