Kolkata

Kolkata is a river city, not a seaside one. The Hooghly runs through it, but nobody swims in it, and the nearest Bay of Bengal beaches at Digha and Mandarmani are a four-hour drive or more. They suit an overnight escape, not a day out. For a visitor, swimming in Kolkata means a hotel pool.

Bengali cooking is one of India's most distinctive regional cuisines, built on river fish, mustard oil, poppy seed and panch phoron. Think hilsa in mustard sauce, prawn malai curry and kosha mangsho. Then there are the sweets, a culture in themselves: rosogolla, sandesh and mishti doi from old family confectioners in every neighbourhood. Street food is just as serious, with phuchka, kathi rolls wrapped in paratha, ghugni and telebhaja frying on corners from Gariahat to Dalhousie.

The city's history shows up on the plate. Kolkata biryani comes with potato and egg, a legacy of the exiled Nawab of Awadh. Tangra and Tiretta Bazaar keep the old Chinese community's Indo-Chinese cooking alive, and Park Street holds on to Anglo-Indian grills and Christmas cakes. Adda over cha in a clay cup is how the city talks. Polished modern restaurants and wine are a smaller part of the picture.

As capital of British India until 1911, Kolkata kept the largest stock of colonial architecture in Asia. The white marble Victoria Memorial stands at the edge of the Maidan. Around BBD Bagh, the Writers' Building, the GPO and the High Court make up a weathered imperial district, and Howrah Bridge spans the Hooghly beside the flower market. The Indian Museum is the oldest in the country. The Marble Palace is a dusty, extraordinary private collection, and South Park Street Cemetery's Georgian tombs are among the most atmospheric places in the city.

Bengali heritage runs alongside. There is Tagore's family home at Jorasanko, the goddess temple at Kalighat, and Dakshineswar and Belur Math facing each other across the river. In Kumartuli, artisans shape clay idols by hand. Much of the old city is crumbling and hard to read without a guide, and that faded grandeur is a large part of its pull.

Park Street is the historic centre of going out, with old bars, pubs and a long tradition of supper-club evenings. A handful of hotel lounges, rooftop bars and clubs are spread across the south of the city and Salt Lake. A night out is mostly drinks and dinner. Most places close around midnight, and dry days on religious festivals and during elections shut bars altogether. The streets really come alive at night during festivals, above all Durga Puja, when the whole city stays out until the small hours to tour the pandals. That is more a street celebration than a club night.

Kolkata sits on the flat, humid delta of the Ganges, so there are no hills and little open country nearby. Green space within the city means the Maidan's wide lawns, the lakes at Rabindra Sarovar and the riverside Botanic Garden at Shibpur, home to a great banyan that spreads like a small forest. Boat rides on the Hooghly at sunset are the easiest way to enjoy the outdoors. The Sundarbans, the mangrove delta where tigers live, start about three hours away and work best as a two- or three-day boat trip. The heat and monsoon humidity limit outdoor activity for much of the year.

The classic day out follows the Hooghly upstream past a string of old European trading towns. Serampore was Danish and Chandannagar French, with a riverside promenade. Chinsurah was Dutch, and Bandel has a Portuguese church. You can link them by local train or by car in a day. Further out, Tagore's university town of Shantiniketan, the terracotta temples of Bishnupur and the Nawabi palaces of Murshidabad are all rewarding, but each is at least three hours away and works better with a night there. Beyond the river towns, the easy choices run out fast.

There are things for children. Science City is a large, hands-on science centre, Alipore Zoo is one of India's oldest, Nicco Park has amusement rides, and the Birla Planetarium is on Chowringhee. The Maidan and Victoria Memorial gardens give space to run around. Bengali culture is warm towards children, and families are welcome everywhere. Still, day-to-day travel is hard work: crowded pavements, heavy traffic, humid heat for most of the year and care needed with water and street food. It suits families who already know India better than first-timers with small children.

India's oldest metro runs north to south under the city and is the quickest way between the centre, Park Street and Kalighat, with further lines out to Salt Lake and Howrah. Beyond it, visitors rely on yellow taxis, app cabs, auto-rickshaws and buses. River ferries across the Hooghly are a cheap, pleasant shortcut to Howrah Station and the ghats. The heritage core around BBD Bagh and the Maidan can be walked in the cooler months. Elsewhere, crowded and broken pavements, heavy traffic and heat make walking slow. A car is never needed, but every journey takes longer than the map suggests.

Kolkata shops best for textiles and crafts. Bengal handloom saris, crisp tant cotton, silk Baluchari, kantha embroidery and Murshidabad silk fill the shops of Gariahat and the government craft emporia of Dakshinapan. New Market, in its red Victorian hall off Chowringhee, is a maze of stalls selling everything from cheese to leather goods. College Street's book stalls stretch for blocks around the university. Burrabazar is a wholesale warren best seen as a spectacle. Modern brands sit in large malls in the south and east, but luxury and design shopping are limited.

Kolkata is one of the cheapest big cities a visitor can travel in. Street food and sweets cost very little, sit-down Bengali meals are modest even in well-known restaurants, and the metro, ferries and taxis are cheap. Monument and museum entry is low even at foreigners' rates. Comfortable mid-range hotels cost a fraction of European prices. Only the international luxury hotels and their bars charge anything like Western rates, and imported alcohol is the main thing that adds up.

Kolkata takes its arts seriously, but much of it happens in Bengali. The group-theatre movement fills Academy of Fine Arts, Madhusudan Mancha and Rabindra Sadan with serious drama most evenings, mostly in Bengali. The city has a long Hindustani classical tradition, and the Dover Lane Music Conference has drawn the great sitar, sarod and vocal artists every winter for generations. Tagore's songs and dance dramas are performed widely, and Baul folk singers turn up at festivals. Park Street has a jazz past. Western classical music, opera and musicals are rare, so a visitor who wants a regular programme in English will find less than the city's cultural reputation suggests.

Kolkata is loud, crowded and humid, and few people come here to rest. Spa culture is limited to the big hotels and a few Ayurvedic massage centres. Bathing at the river ghats is a religious practice, not a leisure one. The calmest moments are found, not organised: early morning on the ghats as the city wakes, the lawns of Belur Math, or an unhurried afternoon of tea and talk. A pool hotel is the best way to unwind between days of sightseeing.