Ahmedabad, in northeastern India, is the largest city in the State of Gujarat. It was founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah and named after its founder. There are many places to visit and things to do in that bustling city. Here are four of them:
1. The Calico Museum of Textiles. The Calico Museum of Textiles was founded in a city in which the Indian textile industry flourished. It was originally housed in the Calico Mills. Considered one of the finest textile museums in the world, the Calico Museum of Textiles houses five hundred years of the finest fabrics spun, woven, printed and painted in different parts of India. The museum displays its textiles organized into religious fabrics and historic fabrics. Visitors to the museum include members of the general public as well as scholars from India and abroad studying textiles. Visitors can also view a collection of marble, sandstone and bronze icons and busts.
2. Kankaria Lake. Kankaria Lake is a circular man-made lake. An island in the center of the lake which hosts a garden, called Nagina Wadi, meaning “beautiful garden” in Urdu. The lake is the site of a number of family-oriented recreational venues, including parks, an aquarium, a boat club, a natural history museum and a zoo. This makes it one of the richest locales to visit in the area.
3. The Mosque of Sidi Saiyyed. The Mosque of Sidi Saiyyed is known throughout the world for its exquisite stone screen windows, or jali. It was built in 1573 by Sidi Saiyyed, a slave of Sutan Ahmed Shah. Visitors to Ahmedabad often bring home a miniature of this arc-rich mosque.
4. The Siddi Bashir Mosque. The front of the Siddi Bashir Mosque is graced with twin minarets. And these minarets contain a mystery. When one minaret is shaken the other one begins to vibrate while the connecting passage between them remains still. How and why this happens has never been explained.
If you have a chance to get to Ahmedabad, you will enjoy these and many other places. If you are planning a trip, don’t forget to come prepared by learning Hindi first with Rocket Hindi.
Read about the perils of not learning Hindi here:
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