Pondicherry is a popular tourist destination in South India. The city has many colonial buildings, churches, temples, and statues which, combined with the systematic town planning and planned French style avenues, still preserve much of the colonial ambiance.

The most popular tourist destinations:

1. Ganesha temple,

2. Promenade Beach (also known locally as the Rocky Beach),

3. Sri Aurobindo Ashram, located on rue de la Marine, is one of the most well known and wealthiest ashrams in India.

4. Auroville (City of Dawn) is an “experimental” township located 14 km north-west of Pondicherry. It is meant to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities.

5. There are a number of old and large churches in Pondicherry, most of which were built in the 18th and 19th centuries.

6. A number of heritage buildings and monuments are present around the Promenade Beach, such as the Children’s Park & Dupleix Statue, Gandhi statue, Nehru Statue, Le Café, French War Memorial, 19th Century Light House, Bharathi Park, Governors Palace, Romain Rolland Library, Legislative Assembly, Pondicherry Museum and the French Institute of Pondicherry at Saint-Louis Street.

Ganesha temple

Sri Manakula Vinayagar temple was built in 1666 by Desingu Raja. This temple was before the French came and settled in Pondicherry. There main deity is Ganesha, here called Manakulavinayagar, it means manal means sand, kulam means water in Tamil, when it was temple here around by sand and water , so, called manakulavinayagar. In India, this is the only Ganesha temple with a tower covered fully with gold. Ganesha along with two wifes on the Golden Vimana, these were a rare feature not to be seen elsewhere. Ganesha is married here. His consorts namely Siddhi and Buddhi.

The temple is opened from 5.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. and 4.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.
Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Aurobindo Ashram

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram is a spiritual community (ashram) located in Pondicherry, in the Indian territory of Puducherry. The ashram grew out of a small community of disciples who had gathered around Sri Aurobindo after he retired from politics and settled in Pondicherry in 1910. On 24 November 1926, after a major spiritual realization, Sri Aurobindo withdrew from public view in order to continue his spiritual work. At this time he handed over the full responsibility for the inner and outer lives of the sadhaks (spiritual aspirants) and the ashram to his spiritual collaborator, “the Mother”, earlier known as Mirra Alfassa. This date is therefore generally known as the founding-day of the ashram, though, as Sri Aurobindo himself wrote, it had “less been created than grown around him as its centre”.