Thiruvadisoolam Chandra Choodeswarar Temple

A Pallava-era rock-cut cave shrine carved into a small hill, dedicated to Narasimha in his fierce Ugra form with a red third eye. Originally a cave temple, it was later expanded with gopurams and mandapams. Pilgrims perform girivalam around the hillock and pray at the sacred Azhinjil tree behind the sanctum.

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.

A working Murugan temple at Thiruporur in inland Chengalpattu, worshipping the god as Kandaswamy and closely tied to the 17th-century saint Chidambara Swamigal, with a tall five-tiered gopuram over a granite sanctum.

A Pallava rock-cut cave temple near Saluvankuppam dedicated to Shiva, notable for its Somaskanda relief panels and inscriptions in Pallava-Grantha and Nagari scripts praising the king Atiranachanda. It sits close to the Tiger Cave and the excavated Subrahmanya shrine.

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.

A small, elegant structural Shiva temple in the Mamallapuram group, built in the early 8th century during the reign of Rajasimha Pallava. It stands apart on the northern edge of the town. The shrine shows the transition from rock-cut to structural architecture that later produced the Shore Temple.

A specialised institution at Mamallapuram that trains sthapatis (temple architects) and stone sculptors in the traditional Shilpa Shastra, keeping alive the craft that produced the town's Pallava monuments. Visitors can watch students carving granite deities and reliefs by hand.

A set of outlying monolithic chariot-shrines carved from single boulders, sculpted like the more famous Pancha Rathas but set apart to the north near a tank. Part of the UNESCO Group of Monuments, they show the same 7th-century Pallava rock-cutting tradition in a less-visited setting.

A striking open-air Pallava rock-cut pavilion at Saluvankuppam, framed by a fan of carved yali (mythical lion-tiger) heads, set in a coastal grove a short drive north of Mamallapuram.

A 7th-century Pallava rock-cut shrine at Mamallapuram carved as three adjacent cells honouring the Hindu trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, with the central Shiva shrine given prominence and a striking Durga figure carved on the outer rock.

Known in Tamil as Vaan Irai Kal, this enormous natural boulder rests improbably on a smooth slope of the Mamallapuram hill, a beloved landmark beside the town's Pallava monuments.

An unfinished Pallava monument of massive pillars and beams, believed to be an incomplete gateway (gopuram) abandoned mid-construction. The exposed, half-carved columns give a rare glimpse into how Mamallapuram's monolithic structures were quarried and shaped in stages.