Kolkata walk - Flower market, churches and synagogues, river views

 


Not too early in the morning I took a taxi to the the area known as B.B.D. Bagh - the Mullick Ghat Flower Market (aka Howrah Flower Market), ferry ports and river views, and beautiful old architecture can be found here.


According to different tourist resources, the best time to visit the flower market under the Howrah Bridge is just after sunrise when the first loads of flowers come in. Maybe so. I went at 9 in the morning and maybe it wasn't that spectacular but it was quite interesting. I was the only foreigner there, and I noticed people didn't seem too happy being photographed. Then I understood, day after day, they must be subjected to it on a large scale. A human zoo without any benefit. When I was leaving, 2 groups of foreigners arrived, first taking photos from the bridge, then they descended to the market. 







































Not far from the Howrah flower market, along a main road, you find a couple of churches and two synagogues. One of the churches is a small one hidden in a market area, the other is a quite large catholic cathedral. Not far from it, on the two sides of the same road, two beautiful and quite large synagogues stand. If you're Jewish, or good at pretending to be, you may get access at least to one of them.































From the synagogues, I headed back to River Hooghly. A little downstream from the flower market there are several busy ferry ports and a train line parallel to the river, and a pleasant park from where you can see Howrah Bridge and the more modern Vidyasagar Setu bridge. 
























From the river I headed back to Sudder Street via the downtown area, passing by some previously visited landmarks but trying to go new ways. 














The New Market and Sudder Street area.













Early next morning, from Howrah Station, I took the fast train to Puri in Odisha. 



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