Lemur Beach

Coastal town and site of the 1741 Battle of Colachel, where Travancore forces under De Lannoy defeated the Dutch East India Company, and a working fishing harbour today.

Also called Thomayar Kovil or Amalagiri Church, it is traditionally believed to have been founded by St. Thomas the Apostle around AD 63, making it one of the oldest church structures in India. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church proclaimed it an international St. Thomas pilgrim centre in 2007. Its oldest sections date to the 17th century and it has never been fully reconstructed.

A prominent Roman Catholic church in the Diocese of Kottar, raised to the status of a minor basilica. It is a major centre of the strong Catholic community of interior Kanyakumari district. The basilica is a well-known pilgrimage and festival church in the Marthandam-Kuzhithurai belt.

The dargah of Peer Mohammed Appa, a 17th-18th-century Sufi philosopher and Tamil poet who settled at Thuckalay and kept close ties with the Travancore rulers. It is one of the most renowned Sufi pilgrim centres in Kanyakumari district. His annual Urs in the Islamic month of Rajab is a local holiday drawing devotees of all faiths from Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

A 9th-century temple dedicated to Vishnu as Parthasarathy, established by the Ay king Karunandadakkan. Copper-plate inscriptions record that it was built with a salai, a Vedic boarding school supporting 95 students of the Taittiriya, Talavakara and Bhavishya Vedic branches. It stands as an important early religious and educational endowment of the region.

A Roman Catholic church dedicated to St. Antony, established in 1942 by Rev. Fr. Mathias of Madathattuvilai parish, which held its first annual festival in 1943. It is a locally significant Catholic parish and festival church in the district's Christian heartland.

Rocky beach with sea caves and a 19th-century lighthouse, known for one of the district's best sunsets and its dramatic wave-cut rock formations.

Former capital and wooden palace complex of the Kingdom of Travancore, one of the largest surviving wooden palaces in Asia, noted for its carved teak ceilings.

This 17th-century fort was rebuilt between 1741 and 1744 by Maharaja Marthanda Varma under the Flemish commander Eustachius De Lannoy, and served as Travancore's chief military barracks and gun-casting foundry. De Lannoy, his wife and son are buried in a ruined chapel inside the fort, marked by a bilingual Tamil-Latin tombstone. The 90-acre granite-hillock site is now managed as a biodiversity park by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department.

Rock-cut Jain temple (locally Bhagavathy Amman koil) carved into a hillock, dating to the 9th century, with sculpted Tirthankara images and a rock-cut stepped approach.

One of the 108 Divya Desams of Vaishnavism, dedicated to Adikesava Perumal (Vishnu), set amid three rivers and known for its reclining deity image.

One of Asia's tallest and longest trough bridges, carrying an irrigation canal across a valley on tall stone piers; built in 1966.