Puducherry

Puducherry is four scattered districts, but the one everyone means is the seaside town that was French from 1674 until 1954. The plan is unusually legible: Ville Blanche, the old French quarter, runs in quiet perpendicular streets of mustard and white houses with deep verandahs, and Ville Noire, the Tamil quarter, keeps its own courtyard houses and the Manakula Vinayagar temple, with a canal historically dividing the two. The seafront Promenade closes to traffic each evening, and people walk the kilometre from the Gandhi statue to Rock Beach as the fishing boats come in. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram, founded in 1926, keeps a silent samadhi courtyard in the middle of town, and its offshoot Auroville, established in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa, surrounds the golden Matrimandir with forest that residents planted on eroded land. Beyond the town, Paradise Beach is reached by boat through the Chunnambar backwater, and Arikamedu on the Ariyankuppam river traded with Rome two thousand years ago. Signature days combine a heritage walk, Auroville and a Creole lunch.