Athmanathaswamy Temple, Avudaiyarkoil (Tirupperunturai)

A ruined fort built by the Tondaiman chieftains who ruled the area as feudatories under the Vijayanagara and Pandya kingdoms around the 16th-17th century. Its most distinctive feature is that the outer ramparts were built largely of mud rather than stone or brick. Little of the interior survives, but the earthen walls make it an unusual example of regional fort construction.

A coastal beach point near the old port town of Kottaipattinam on the Bay of Bengal/Palk Strait, a local seaside outing spot with an active fishing harbour.

A Shiva temple where the deity is worshipped as Arangulanathar with his consort Brahadambal (Periyanayaki). It is a Vaippu Sthalam praised in the Tevaram hymns of Sambandar and is traditionally linked to the Sangam-era Chola king Karikala. The temple has a large hundred-pillar hall, and a superb Nataraja bronze from here is now displayed at the National Museum, New Delhi.

A seventeenth-century hill fort above Thirumayam, with a separate visitor route from the living temples below.

A Shiva rock-cut cave temple hewn from the same hill as the Vishnu shrine, dated to the 8th-9th century and noted for sculptures of Mahishasuramardini and the Sapta Matrikas.

A rock-cut Vishnu temple within Thirumayam Fort, home to one of the largest reclining-Vishnu (Anantasayana) rock-cut sculptures in India.

A 17th-century Sufi mosque and dargah built by Arcot Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah in Indo-Islamic style with a large dome, arched gateway and minarets. It houses the tomb of the Sufi saint Bava Fakruddin, believed to be a grandson of the Nagore saint Shahul Hamid. Its annual urs festival draws pilgrims of many faiths, including Hindus, making it a symbol of local interfaith harmony.

The palace of the Thondaiman rulers of the former princely state of Pudukkottai, built in 1930 by Raja Rajagopala Thondaiman, the last monarch, in an Indo-Saracenic Dravidian style. It today houses the District Collector's office. It is the surviving royal landmark of the town's heritage core, whose planned layout was itself an early example of formal town planning in the region.

A major museum founded in 1910 with 18 galleries spanning archaeology, bronzes, sculpture, geology and anthropology, housing the former princely state's art collection.

A Pallava rock-cut Shiva temple carved around the mid-7th century by Mahendravarman I, with goddess Brihadambal as the tutelary deity of the Tondaiman kings of Pudukkottai.

A 9th-century Shiva temple attributed to Aditya Chola I, one of the earliest structural (as opposed to rock-cut) temples in the region, with fine sculptural panels on all four vimana faces.

A 2nd-century Jain rock-cut cave temple famed for its Pandya-era fresco murals of a lotus pond, dancers and animals, regarded as second only to Ajanta among Indian cave paintings.