India
Kolkata
Kolkata: Victoria Memorial, Howrah Bridge and the Hooghly
Kolkata stretches along the east bank of the Hooghly, a branch of the Ganges that Hindus hold sacred, and its name comes from Kalikata, a village that stood here before the British. November to February brings cool, pleasant weather, March to May is hot and humid, and the monsoon lasts from June to September or October.
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Good to know
Starting or Ending a River Cruise
The river cruises on the Hooghly and the Ganges that include Kolkata begin or end here, so most visitors see it on a day before or after the voyage rather than on a port call. Your cruise line will tell you where the ship moors and how transfers from the airport or your hotel are arranged.
- From the airport, prepaid taxis, app-based cabs, air-conditioned buses and the metro all run into the city.
- Howrah station, across the river, is the largest railway complex in India, and the Howrah Bridge links it with the city.
- Bengali is the main language, and many people also understand English and some Hindi.
Kolkata on Your Own
A free day in Kolkata can be built around the Maidan, the great open park between the Hooghly and Chowringhee Road, and the museums and riverside walks near it. Keep the day to one area, and use the metro or an app-based cab to move between places. The opening hours and fees below were checked in October 2026, so confirm them before you go.
- Victoria Memorial: The marble memorial to Queen Victoria, built between 1906 and 1921 at 1 Queen's Way, is now a museum of Indian history and art. Its galleries open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and close on Mondays and some national holidays, while the gardens open every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Indian Museum: Founded in 1814 and the earliest museum in the Indian subcontinent, it holds Mughal paintings, fossils and mummies. It is at 27 Jawaharlal Nehru Road, is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and charges foreign visitors ₹500.
- The riverfront: Prinsep Ghat, a riverside landing from the 1840s with a Palladian memorial porch, is the start of a 2 km landscaped walk along the Hooghly to Babughat.
- Taxis: Avoid hailing taxis on the street, especially at night; app-based cabs are widely available and let you share your journey with someone.
- Your belongings: Keep a hand on bags and phones in crowds and at stations, where snatch thefts happen.
- Boarding day: Ships sail on schedule and will not wait for passengers who arrive late, so leave plenty of time for Kolkata's traffic.
Getting Around
The metro, app-based cabs and taxis cover most trips across the city. Away from the Maidan and the newer districts, Kolkata is not an easy city to walk, and crossing a main road means threading through several lanes of traffic.
- The Kolkata Metro opened in 1984 as the first rapid transit system in South Asia, and it has grown to several lines since.
- On the metro, the seats at each end of a coach are reserved for older and disabled passengers, and the middle sections for women.
- Taxis and cabs are supposed to run on the meter. App-based services such as Uber and Ola can be booked at any hour.
- Ferries cross the Hooghly from several ghats, including the one opposite Howrah station.
- Shared auto-rickshaws run fixed routes and carry several passengers at once.
Food in Kolkata
Kolkata is best known for the rosogolla, one of its milk sweets, and for street food such as the kati roll, which is said to have started here.
- Rosogolla are soft balls of chhena, a fresh cheese, cooked in light syrup. West Bengal and Odisha both claim the sweet, and each now holds a geographical indication for its own version.
- Mishti doi is sweetened curd, set in earthenware pots that let water evaporate slowly as it ferments.
- Sandesh is a Bengali sweet made from milk and sugar, often with chhena.
- The kati roll, a skewer-roasted kebab wrapped in paratha, is said to have started at the Nizam restaurant, which opened in 1932.
Tipping in India
Tipping is unusual in India's ordinary restaurants and hotels, although it may be appreciated, and in upmarket restaurants a tip is appropriate. India's currency is the rupee (₹).
- Check the bill before tipping, because upmarket restaurants may add a service charge.
- The word baksheesh can mean a tip for someone who has done you a service.
Culture in Kolkata
Durga Puja, the worship of the goddess Durga, is Kolkata's biggest festival, and UNESCO added it to its intangible cultural heritage list in 2021. Day to day, the city's culture lives in close-knit neighborhoods, called paras, and in long, free-ranging conversations known as adda.
- Kolkata held about 3,000 community Durga Pujas in 2022.
- In Kumartuli, the old potters' quarter in north Kolkata, craftsmen make clay images of gods and goddesses for the city's festivals and for export.
- Kolkata is the center of the Bengali film industry, known as Tollywood after the Tollygunge district, and is associated with filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray.
- The city has India's only Chinatown, and traces remain of its Jewish, Armenian, Greek and Anglo-Indian communities.
- Kolkata is India's center of football.
A Brief History
Kolkata grew from three riverside villages after the English East India Company arrived in 1690. As Calcutta it was the de facto capital of British India until 1911, and the second-largest city in the British Empire after London.
- Before the British: Kalikata appears in Bengali writing from 1495 as a village near the Kalighat temple, where river traders stopped to worship the goddess Kali.
- 1690 and 1698: The East India Company set up its trading post in 1690 and bought the villages of Kalikata, Gobindapur and Sutanuti in 1698. Job Charnock is often called the city's founder, but in 2003 the Calcutta High Court ruled that the city has no founder.
- 1756 and 1757: Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah captured Fort William in 1756. Company forces under Robert Clive retook the city the next year, and the nawab was defeated at the Battle of Plassey.
- 1814: The Asiatic Society founded the Indian Museum.
- 1857: The University of Calcutta, the first modern Indian university, was founded.
- 1911: The capital of British India moved to Delhi.
- 1943: The Howrah Bridge opened, replacing a pontoon bridge, and about 100,000 vehicles a day use it.
- 1947: Partition divided Bengal, and for decades afterward refugees from East Bengal, now Bangladesh, came to the city.
- 2001: The city's official English name changed from Calcutta to Kolkata, to match the Bengali pronunciation.
- To learn more ashore: The galleries of the Victoria Memorial, on Queen's Way, concentrate on Indian history of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, from paintings and documents to historic objects.
Kolkata with Children
Kolkata has two big places for curious children, Science City, the largest science center in the Indian subcontinent, and the Birla Planetarium, the largest planetarium in Asia. The Maidan and the Victoria Memorial gardens give space to run in between.
- Younger children: The Victoria Memorial stands in extensive gardens, open every day, which give children room to run.
- School age: Science City has hands-on exhibits, a freshwater aquarium of 26 tanks and an enclosure of live butterflies hatched on site.
- Teenagers: The Birla Planetarium, opened in 1963 next to the Victoria Memorial, is built in a style loosely based on the Buddhist stupa at Sanchi and has an astronomy gallery and an observatory.
- Air quality: Air pollution can be severe in Indian cities from October to February, and children are among those most affected, so check the air quality before a long day outdoors.
Shopping
New Market, a Victorian Gothic market hall on Lindsay Street that opened in 1874, was for generations the heart of fashionable shopping in Kolkata. Locally the name covers the whole shopping area around it.
- The market was built for the city's British residents, who did not want to shop in the older bazaars.
- Kolkata also has large traditional markets at Burrabazar, Gariahat and Hatibagan.
- Scammers, pickpockets and touts work the tourist areas, so stay alert in busy shopping streets.
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