Cheyyur Beach

A ruined 18th-century fort at Alamparai (Alamparai Kottai) on the coast near Kadapakkam, built in the Nawab era as a busy trading port. Its broken ramparts run out towards a backwater estuary where the water meets the sea, making it one of the ECR's most atmospheric ASI ruins.

A colonial-era garden bungalow at Karunguzhi associated with Robert Clive of the East India Company, said to have used it as a country retreat in the 18th century. The weathered structure survives as one of the district's few tangible relics of early British Madras Presidency history.

One of the largest irrigation eris (tanks) in Tamil Nadu, built centuries ago and fed by the Palar and monsoon runoff. Its long earthen bund is tied to the Eri Katha Ramar temple legend. The wetland draws migratory waterbirds, complementing the nearby Vedanthangal and Karikili sanctuaries.

A weathered 17th-18th century Dutch East India Company fort at Sadras (Sadurangapattinam) on the Coromandel coast, with brick ramparts, sea-facing bastions and a small Dutch cemetery of carved tombstones. It is an ASI-protected ruin standing quietly by the Bay of Bengal.

One of Tamil Nadu's most visited Shakti shrines, the Arulmigu Adhiparasakthi Siddhar Peetam rose to prominence after the deity was enshrined in 1977 by Bangaru Adigalar. Devotees of any caste or gender may enter the sanctum and touch the deity, and all wear red. Tradition holds that 21 Siddhars, several of them women, attained Jeeva Samadhi at the site.

A quiet, wide sandy beach on the ECR coast beside the historic Sadras Dutch Fort and near Kalpakkam. Far less crowded than Mamallapuram, it draws day-trippers who pair the shoreline with the 17th-century fort ruins and Dutch cemetery just inland.

A Rama temple beside the vast Madurantakam tank, famed for the legend of 'Eri Katha Ramar', the Rama who saved the lake. British collector Colonel Lionel Place recorded that during a threatening flood in the early 1800s, two figures in bright attire were seen guarding the bund, which held. He credited the miracle to Rama and endowed the temple.

A hilltop Shiva temple, Vedagiriswarar, reached by a climb of roughly 500 stone steps at Thirukazhukundram, long known as Pakshi Tirtham. In tradition two eagles or kites once came daily to the summit, while the Bhaktavatsaleswarar temple sits at the base of the hill.

One of India's oldest water-bird sanctuaries, protected since the 18th century and declared an official sanctuary in 1936. This wetland southwest of Chennai draws thousands of migratory birds that nest here, with the peak from November to March.

Five monolithic 7th-century Pallava temples, each hewn from a single granite boulder and named for the Pandava brothers and Draupadi; a highlight of Mahabalipuram's UNESCO ensemble.

The Bay of Bengal shoreline running alongside Mahabalipuram's monuments and fishing hamlets. Come for sunrise, colourful fishing boats and simple seafood shacks by the sand.

An early-1900s working lighthouse on the Mamallapuram hill, standing beside the ancient Olakkannesvara temple, the Pallava-era "Old Lighthouse." Climbing it opens sweeping views over the coast and the monument town.