Kolkata

The white marble Taj Mahal of British India — built for Queen Victoria in 1921, now an excellent museum of Raj-era history. The Sound & Light show at night is atmospheric.

One of the world's busiest cantilever bridges — 100,000 vehicles and 150,000 pedestrians daily. Walk across at 6am to see flower sellers, fish porters, and trams below.

The potters' quarter where craftsmen make the clay Durga idols for the world's largest arts festival. Year-round you can watch the sculpting process in open workshops.

For 5 days in October, Kolkata transforms into the world's largest open-air arts festival — millions of visitors, thousands of illuminated pandals (temporary temples), and total civic joy.

Kolkata has India's greatest street food — kathi rolls at Nizam's, phuchka (pani puri), jhal muri, mishti doi (sweet yogurt), and rosogolla. The best food city in India, full stop.

The largest second-hand book market in the world occupies a single kilometre of pavement and spills into the Coffee House opposite — where Bengal's intellectuals have debated literature, politics, and cinema since 1942. Browse stalls stacked floor-to-ceiling with rare Bengali editions, Soviet-era paperbacks, and every Bengali textbook ever printed.

Raja Rajendra Mullick built this 1835 neoclassical mansion and filled it with Flemish paintings, Venetian chandeliers, Chinese porcelain, and assorted taxidermy — all of which remain exactly where he left them. The zoo-within-a-palace atmosphere, peacocks wandering the courtyard included, makes it the most gloriously eccentric house museum in India.

Mother Teresa's headquarters and her simple tomb occupy a quiet building near New Market — the contrast between the marble monuments of the city and this spare, purposeful place is stark and moving. The sisters still welcome visitors, and the small museum documents her 45 years in Kolkata with letters and photographs that no hagiography could match.

Swami Vivekananda designed the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission so its main temple blends Hindu, Islamic, and Christian architectural motifs into one seamless building — a physical argument for universal religion. Arrive at 6am for morning prayers along the Hooghly riverbank, when the mist is still on the water and the monks are the only other presence.

The world's largest mangrove forest and a UNESCO World Heritage Site begins just 100km from Kolkata — a boat safari through narrow tidal creeks where Royal Bengal tigers swim between islands and crocodiles sun on mudflats. Full-day departures from Sonakhali include a forest walk and village lunch; the scale of the delta, seen from water level, is humbling.

Kolkata's most celebrated street comes alive after dark with institutions that survived empires and partitions — Flury's 1927 tearoom serves pastries unchanged since the Swiss bakers left, Peter Cat's Chelo Kebab has been the definitive date-night dish for 40 years, and the bars keep the city's legendary conversation culture running well past midnight.