Experience the best of Pondicherry

Pondicherry, renamed Puducherry in 2006, lies on the Coromandel Coast of south-east India and was ruled by France until the 1950s. Its French Quarter, known as White Town, has a grid of tree-lined streets with ochre and pale-yellow colonial villas hung with bougainvillea, and a promenade along the sea where a statue of Gandhi stands. The Sacred Heart Basilica and the Immaculate Conception Cathedral give the quarter a skyline of church towers.

The Sri Aurobindo Ashram, founded in 1926, draws visitors from around the world, and Auroville, the experimental township begun in 1968 around the golden Matrimandir meditation chamber, lies about ten kilometres north. Tamil temples such as the Manakula Vinayagar Temple stand near the French streets. Paradise Beach is reached by boat across a backwater, and the temples of Chidambaram and Mahabalipuram are within reach.

Franco-Tamil cooking mixes the two traditions, with fresh baguettes, croissants and crêpes in the cafés beside seafood curries, banana-leaf Tamil meals and filter coffee. Sea breezes soften a humid climate, and the pleasantest weather falls in the winter, from November to February.