Thanjavur visit

Thanjavur is a visitors delight for seeing old temples and monuments.

We reached Thanjavur back from our visit to Velankanni church and were staying at Hotel Gnanam (www.hotelgnanam.com).

Thanjavur has a lot of temples and monuments and one may need 2 to 3 days to cover all of them. Because of our time restraint, the places we could visit were the Brahadeeshwara Temple Complex and the Thanjavur Palace Complex.

Brahadeeshwara Temple Complex
Built by Raja Raja Chola - around 1011 AD. It is also called the Big Temple and is on the World Heritage List.
I walked around and clicked many snaps. As far as the details and history about this place there are lot of information already on the net.
The place was not crowded and one can walk around peacefully, taking time to see around the various art, architecture and so on.

The next place to vist was Thanjavur Palace Complex. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from the Temple Complex.
This was built by the Nayaks and Marathas around year 1550. The complex consists of various structures like the Royal Museum, Art Gallery and Saraswati Mahal Library. One interesting structure is the "Bell Tower" in the palace complex. In the Royal Museum, lot of items used by past rulers are on display.

Another interesting display is the skeleton of a Whale! I managed to get a snap of it.
The Art gallery there are lot of items used during the Chola dynasty. The Saraswati Mahal Library has lot of old manuscripts - on palm leaves and paper.

After spending about 2 hours in the complex and taking photos, it was time to get back to the hotel since we had to catch the night train to Chennai.