Private tour of Madurai city with guide for a cultural immersion
Description
Experience cultural immersion in Madurai with its 2500 year old heritage at Meenakshi Temple, architectural marvel of Thirumalai Nayakar Palace, the charm of a Potters village, Gandhi museum and a local bazaar walk with a sip of Jigarthanda, the local cold beverage! Our company is committed to strengthening local communities. We help train and employ local guides and support local businesses to ensure travel dollars stay where they are spent.
Tour Options
Itinerary
We visit the Madurai Meenakshi Temple, one of the largest Temples of the World and an Architectural marvel. Over the last 2500 years Madurai Meenakshi Temple has been the lifeline of the City of Madurai. Madurai Meenakshi Temple has played a crucial role in promoting Tamil Art, Music, Dance & Culture. In fact, Madurai Meenakshi Temple is supposed to have been the host of the third assembly of Tamil Sangam, the ancient Literature Meet. As many as 30000 sculptures can be found in the Madurai Meenakshi Note that the following items are not allowed inside the Meenakshi temple. You can leave these either in the hotel itself or in the car. Mobiles, sharp metallic objects, perfume/sprays and lip sticks.
We visit the magnificent Thirumala Nayakar Palace. This was build by the Nayak Kings in 1636. The building we see today was the main Palace where the King lived. The original Palace Complex was four times bigger than the present structure and had a royal residence, theatre, shrine, apartments, armoury, palanquin place, royal bandstand, quarters, ponds and gardens. Its architecture inspired a whole genre of Indo-Saracenic style of buildings during British India.
Gandhi Museum is located the old palace of Rani Mangammal. The museum brings alive the freedom struggle. The Gandhian movement is well depicted as a picture gallery. Madurai was chosen for this museum as Gandhiji took important decisions during his visits to Madurai. in 1921 he decided to give up his rich dressing pattern when he was visiting Madurai. The doors of Meenakshi Amman temple were thrown open to Harijans in Madurai and the battle against untouchability had a win. Gandhiji visited the temple in 1946 along with the Harijans and that was a defining moment in this struggle.
Vilachery is a potters village near Madurai. Over 200 families live here and most are into pottery. They make dolls for scores of festivals round the year. The paper mache dolls made here adorn South Indian homes during the 9 day festival of Navratri.
We end the Madurai tour with a bazaar walk. Madurai has a famous wholesale market for bananas. We will walk past many different varieties of Bananas. The tour ends with a sip of Jigarthanda , the most famous local cold beverage of Madurai!
Highlights
What's included
Pickup Locations & Times
All hotels in Madurai
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Reviews(36)
Had a great tour with my guide Meenakshi. He was very knowledgeable and knew lots of cool facts about the locations history.
Meenakshi is a great tour guide. Very patient and very knowledgeable. Not only about the areas of Madurai we visited but also other stops we will be going to during our trip. He has provided enormous insight throughout and answered every question. Thoroughly enjoyable!
Kasinathan Bose is an exceptional guide! He took us on a tour of Madurai’s architectural wonders, such as the colourful Meenakshi Amman Temple and the majestic Tirumalai Nayak Palace. He then took us to see the city’s vibrant fruit and vegetable markets, and in particular the banana market, which is definitely worth a visit. We then went to the village of Vilacheri, where many families make beautiful clay dolls. Kasinathan is a very knowledgeable and competent guide, but above all, he is incredibly kind! His warm smile made us feel right at home and made our day in Madurai even more special!
We really enjoyed our tour with Meenakshi.. He is enthusiastic/knowledgeable and is able to cover the religious, historical and architectural aspects of the temples very well. He made the visit to the Meenakshi temple extremely rewarding . We also went to Nayak palace, Banana Market, Potters Village, Thepakulam and Gandhi Museam. In summary it was a day well spent and we felt we got a good feel for Madurai - its people and culture .. Thank you Meenakshi.
We had a very enjoyable 3 hour tour of the markets and temples of Madurai. Our tour guide Mani was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. I highly recommend.
We did a great morning tour with Guide Muthu. He was very knowledgeable and shared lots of interesting info about Madurai’ history and culture. We really enjoyed walking through the markets with Muthu pointing out the details of how it all works from change providers to wholesalers bargaining with their customers. We’d highly recommend a tour with Muthu. Thanks, Muthu.
It was great that the our guide, meenakshi, was very knowledgeable and flexible. He was also very friendly and helpful.
Minakshi Sundaram was a great tour guide and very accommodating to my 80yr old grandma. He was very friendly and passionate about the history he shared with us. Good English as well. The tour was great.
A very informative and knowledgeable guide. friendly and perfect english we highly recommend him for a tour in madurai
Amazing trip guided by Ayyappan was seamless and meticulous. All the arrangements were curated to our requests and were implacable! Very professional service.
