Mumbai

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Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus the former Victoria Terminus.  The jewel in Mumbai's architectural crown looks more like a royal palace rather than a transportation hub.

Some say it resembles St. Pancras Station in London but the High Victorian Gothic based on medieval Italian style combined with the Indian architectural tradition has created something unique to Bombay and one of the most magnificent train stations in the world.

It was opened on Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.  India's very first steam engine left the station on that day.

Fanny and I had both read Rohinon Mistrys "Such a Long Journey" on this trip and set out to discover Gustad Nobel's Bombay.  Of course we were 30 years too late but some of it is here. The station approach would have looked much the same.  The name has changed but as almost everyone still calls it V.T. he may not have noticed.

Crawford Market

Once the premier wholesale fruit and vegetable market for Mumbai.  It still sells fruit and veg as well as poultry, pets, birds, household and gift items. The market bustles with life and colour and porters with large round baskets on their heads scurrying hither and thither.

Crawford Trivia:

Built in a Norman/Florentine style in 1869.

Became the the first building in India to be lit by electric light in 1869.

Fountain near the bird market, designed by Lockwood Kipling the father of Rudyard.

 

 

Here Gustad Nobel shopped for the chicken for his daughters birthday dinner.
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