Kolkata was the capital of British India for over 130 years and its colonial architecture is more ambitious and more intact than any other city on the subcontinent. This kolkata walking tour companion is paired with “4K Walk Around Kolkata’s Howrah Bridge and Railway Station in Bengal, India” — a walk that covers the iconic cantilever bridge, the daily life of the Hooghly River, and the colonial city that gave British India its grandest buildings.
About This Walking Tour
This 4K walk covers the Howrah Bridge area — the iconic cantilever bridge spanning the Hooghly River between Howrah and Kolkata — and its surrounding riverfront. The Howrah Bridge, completed in 1943, is one of the busiest bridges in the world, carrying an estimated 100,000 vehicles and far more pedestrians daily. The video captures the bridge’s extraordinary scale (the main span is 457 metres) and the life of the river beneath it: ferries, cargo vessels, the Mullik Ghat flower market at the bridge’s Kolkata end, and the rowing boats and bathing ghats that line the riverbank.
The broader Kolkata heritage walk extends through the colonial heart of the city: the Victoria Memorial (1921), built in Makrana white marble as the grandest monument to the British Raj; the Esplanade and Maidan (the 1.5-kilometre green lung that stretches between the colonial buildings and the river); the BBD Bag financial quarter with its Writers’ Building (1780) and surviving colonial offices; and College Street — the highest density of second-hand bookshops in the world and home of the Indian Coffee House, a literary institution since 1942.
Highlights of Kolkata
The Howrah Bridge (officially Rabindra Setu) was constructed without a single nut or bolt — all joints are riveted — using 26,500 tonnes of high-tensile steel. The bridge was designed to withstand the seismic activity and cyclones of the Ganges delta. It connects Howrah Station (one of India’s busiest railway termini) with Kolkata proper and is particularly atmospheric at dawn when the Mullik Ghat flower market at its foot is at full activity: marigold and tuberose garlands arriving by the truckload for the city’s temples and daily offerings.
The Victoria Memorial, completed in 1921 and designed by William Emerson (who also designed Crawford Market in Mumbai), is the largest single colonial monument in India. Built ostensibly to commemorate Queen Victoria’s death in 1901, it houses an extensive museum of colonial art and artefacts. The surrounding garden is one of Kolkata’s main public spaces. The parallel row of late Victorian and Edwardian buildings along the Maidan edge — St Paul’s Cathedral, the High Court, the Presidency University, and Raj Bhavan — represents the most complete surviving ensemble of British imperial civic architecture in Asia.
Rabindranath Tagore, born in Jorasanko in north Kolkata in 1861, became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913). His family home, Jorasanko Thakur Bari, is open as a museum and is a pilgrimage site for Bengali literary culture. College Street, nearby, has been the centre of Bengali intellectual life since the early 19th century.
A Brief History of Kolkata
Kolkata was founded as a trading post by Job Charnock of the British East India Company in 1690 (though the actual founding date is disputed). The city grew rapidly as the Company’s base for Bengal and eventually all India, becoming the capital of British India from 1773 to 1911, when the capital was moved to the newly planned New Delhi. This period of primacy explains Kolkata’s extraordinary concentration of colonial architecture — the government buildings, churches, race course, trading houses, and clubs built for a city that ruled a subcontinent.
Kolkata’s intellectual and cultural life reached its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the Bengal Renaissance — a movement of social reform, literary achievement, and scientific inquiry associated with figures including Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Jagadish Chandra Bose. The city remains India’s centre for Bengali language culture and has a strong tradition of political activism and artistic production.
Practical Tips
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport is approximately 20 kilometres northeast of the city centre. Kolkata’s Metro (the first in India, opened 1984) serves the central areas. India uses the rupee. Victoria Memorial admission is approximately 200 rupees for foreigners. College Street and the Mullik Ghat flower market are free. The Howrah Bridge can be walked across as a pedestrian. The city is very hot and humid from April through September; October through March is the comfortable season for walking.
Best Time to Visit
October is the best month — the Durga Puja festival transforms the entire city with enormous temporary temple installations (pandals) and street celebrations for five days, in what has been described as the world’s largest open-air art festival. November through February offers comfortable temperatures for extended colonial heritage walks.
Watch & Explore More
The full 4K Howrah Bridge and railway station walk is embedded above. Find more India content at the @walkingtoursvideoscom channel. Related posts: Delhi’s Old Delhi Chandni Chowk walk and Mumbai’s Colaba to Fort District walk.