MADURAI

Madurai is a hot South Indian city of Tamilnadu. The ancient southern Indian city of Madurai that has earned the sobriquet, 'Athens of the East', is a place of great historical importance. This city has another name called as Temple City of India. Madurai is famous for Chithirai Festivals.

Meenakshi Amman Temple

Meenakshi Amman Temple is situated at the center of Madurai city. This temple has total of 12 Gopurams or high rising towers , the four tallest Gopuram are placed at the outer walls each measuring 49 meters. The temple built in Dravidian architecture has four entrances that leads to the Meenakshi Amman shrine. The Astha Shakti Mandapan can be reached from the eastern gateway. Built under the guidance of the Nayakar's wife Rudrapathi Ammal and Tholimamal, the scenes from Meenakhshi Amman's life as a princess is depicted on the pillars.Potramarai Kulam is at the center of the temple.

Gandhi Museum

Ganthi Museum was constructed in the year of 1959. It is now one of the five Gandhi Sanghralayas (Gandhi Museums) in the country. This Museum containing photos, paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, quotations and some of the selected Photostat copies of many of letters written by him and some of his renderings.

Pazhamuthircholai

Pazhamuthircholai is a Murugan temple located about 20 kms from Madurai city. This place is a forest area.There is a Temple Tower and monkeys play around the area. There is another small temple above Pazhamudhir Cholai. It is one of the six important abodes of Lord Muruga.

Thiruparankundram

Thiruparankundram is located about 5kms from Madurai city. There are several architectural features of interest, especially the rock cut portions of this hill temple dating back to the Pandya period and the life sized sculptures in the mandapams of the Nayakar period.