Facts

392 things worth knowing about Fort Kochi and Mattancherry.

• Anchal, the name of Kerala’s old postal service, comes from the Greek angelos — messenger.
• Kerala’s mail runners had legal right of way. By law, everyone else had to step aside.
• The sealed green box outside the post office is cast iron, made in Madras, and held up to 3,000 letters. Nothing has gone into it since the Anchal service merged with India Post in 1951.
• Mail has been handled on this one spot since the 1500s — Portuguese, then Dutch, then British, same address. The building itself is only from 1928.
• Vasco da Gama was buried in St. Francis Church for 14 years before his bones were shipped home to Lisbon. The empty slab is still in the floor.
• When the Dutch took Kochi in 1663 they pulled down almost every Catholic church in the area. They spared St. Francis because they wanted it to pray in — and spared Santa Cruz because they wanted somewhere to keep weapons.
• The church still holds a Dutch baptism and marriage register running from 1751 to 1804. Dutch visitors come to look up their own ancestors in it.
• Paradesi means foreigner in Malayalam.
• The synagogue floor is laid with hundreds of 18th-century Chinese porcelain tiles, hand-painted in blue and white. No two are the same.
• Around 1000 CE a Hindu ruler granted a Jewish leader, Joseph Rabban, his own privileges — inscribed on copper plates. The plates are still kept inside the synagogue.
• The synagogue and the Hindu temple of Mattancherry Palace share a wall.
• The Jain temple is open to visitors for ninety minutes a day. At 12.15 the priests carry out plates of grain and thousands of pigeons drop into the courtyard at once.
• About 250 Jain families live in Kochi. Their families came down from Kutch and Gujarat to trade, and stayed.
• Peter Celli Street is named after petercelie — Dutch for parsley.
• Princess Street may never have had a princess. One theory has it as Prince’s Street, after the pirate William Kidd, who was nicknamed Prince.
• Most of Fort Kochi does not open until 9.30 or 10 in the morning. Le Té opens at 7.30.
• The Poovath Street murals came out of a Fearless Collective fellowship, on the idea that people who rarely see themselves on a wall should get to take up that space.
• One of the Poovath Street panels is a portrait of Bandit, a Cats of Kochi cat, painted beside the Asexual Pride flag.
• The first Chavittu Natakam play, Charlemagne, originally ran for 15 days with around 80 actors.
• Fugdo always ends with the Marauli — a peacock chased by a leopard, and the dancers protecting it.
• The palace floor looks like black marble. It’s actually lime, egg whites, plant juices and burnt coconut shells.
• The synagogue’s Belgian glass chandeliers were imported in the 19th century.
• Only about 27% of Dutch sailors who came to Cochin between 1740 and 1795 ever made it back to Europe.
• Vypin Island did not exist before 1341. A flood that destroyed the port at Kodungallur carved out the channel that created it.
• The organism behind kavaru is a single cell about the size of a pinhead, with no eyes, no brain and no legs.
• The old Cochin Library once stood on the spot where Aspinwall House, a Kochi-Muziris Biennale venue, stands today.
• The Guardians of Fort Kochi mural was co-painted by 10 Fearless Ambassador artists from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Myanmar.
• Kathakali’s chutti makeup follows fixed rules: green for noble characters, red for evil, black for the mysterious.
• On old Bazaar Road, buyer and seller struck deals by tying a cloth around their joined hands and negotiating in finger signals hidden underneath — so no one else could see the price.
• The very first European fortress in India was founded in Fort Kochi on September 26, 1503, and named Fort Manuel after the reigning King of Portugal. Remarkably, it was not constructed from stone: its walls were composed of two parallel rows of cocoanut tree trunks driven into the ground, bound together by iron hoops and large nails, with earth rammed in between and a wet ditch around it.
• When the Protestant Dutch captured Cochin from the Roman Catholic Portuguese in 1663, they demolished almost every grand Catholic church in the region but spared the Cathedral of Santa Cruz. They used it as a warehouse for sugar from Batavia (Jakarta), cinnamon from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), nutmegs, cloves, pepper, and iron, and turned its high tower into a military flagstaff. Dutch records also say that on weekdays, during special emergencies, it was used as a slave godown to hold enslaved people who had been captured and sold.
• When the Dutch rebuilt Fort Kochi on a reduced scale in 1697, they kept the street grid and gave the streets literal names: de Linde straat (Lime Tree Street), de Heere straat (Gentleman’s Street), de Peeterceelie straat (Parsley Street), de Osse straat (Ox Street), de Kalven straat (Calf Street), de Burgen straat (Citizens Street), de Bree straat (Broad Street), and de Smee straat (Smith’s Street).
• Long before modern municipal corporations, Dutch Cochin was highly organized: inhabitants paid an annual municipal tax dedicated entirely to keeping the street drains clean and maintaining the public streetlights.
• Colonial Cochin had a large permanent gallows beside the Santa Cruz Cathedral warehouse near the river. About a mile away, a low island in the backwater called Gallows’ Island served as the site for military executions and later as a burial ground for paupers.
• Mattancherry Palace, commonly called the Dutch Palace, is actually Portuguese: it was constructed around 1550 and presented as a gift to the Rajah of Cochin. It became associated with the Dutch only after they renovated and altered it more than a century later.
• Under ancient Cochin sumptuary laws, ordinary citizens were forbidden from building houses of stone, brick, or tile. Their dwellings were restricted to mud walls and thatched leaf roofs; only royal palaces and religious temples had the privilege of stone masonry and tiled roofs. Moorish merchants were sometimes allowed stone walls solely to secure their trade goods.
• During the Portuguese plunder of Mattancherry’s Jew’s Town in 1662, the Jewish community hid its ancient Hebrew Pentateuch, or Torah scroll, to save it from destruction. After Dutch rule was established, they recovered it completely uninjured in 1668.
• In 1854, the local British-influenced government established one of the region’s first English schools at Mattancherry, specifically to educate Jewish children.
• When the Dutch prohibited Roman Catholic worship inside Fort Kochi, Catholic priests were banished across the backwater to the newly formed island of Vypeen. There they established the Church of Our Lady of Hope, whose sanctuary still contains the historic altar and old decorative screen from Fort Kochi’s original Franciscan church.
• During the Portuguese and Dutch eras, Alwaye (Aluva) was the official sanitarium of Cochin. To escape Fort Cochin’s oppressive heat in April and May, colonial residents travelled twenty miles upriver by boat and stayed in about twenty riverside bungalows for the cool breezes and therapeutic bathing.
• Near Verapoly, on the route from Cochin to Alwaye, a natural cavern on the riverbank was locally called the Devil’s Mouth. It is only about three feet high, but local lore warned that it was packed with deadly snakes and bats, so no local person dared to explore it.
• At Pallipuram (Palliport), accused criminals were once subjected to a crocodile ordeal: after swearing before a temple idol, they had to swim across crocodile-infested waters to determine their guilt or innocence.
• The historic British and Dutch leper asylum, or Lazaretto, at Pallipuram (Palliport) was originally constructed by the Portuguese in 1587 as a Syrian Christian college.
• Pallipuram’s village church was built to commemorate a miraculous oil painting of the Virgin Mary that local legend says floated across the open sea and washed ashore at Palliport.
• Bolghatty Island, also called Ponyekurra, was chosen as the picturesque seat of the British Resident. The Residency bungalow stood among the trees, and the British Ensign was famously flown from a flagstaff lashed to the summit of one of the island’s highest trees.
• According to a local legend at Cranganore (Kodungallur), St. Thomas and the goddess Bhagavadi debated the merits of Christianity and Hinduism at Palliport. When Bhagavadi fled to her temple and tried to shut its door, St. Thomas wedged his foot between the door and doorpost. Neither yielded, and the door supposedly turned to stone in that half-closed position, where it remains today.
• In 1762, the Rajah of Cochin established a detailed tax scale on trees around Fort Cochin, paid in a local currency called the Poothen, valued at approximately one anna and eight pies. A fruit-bearing cocoanut tree was taxed at two poothens, a jackfruit tree at eight poothens, and a betel-nut tree at a quarter of a poothen. Brahmans were exempt from paying house or dwelling taxes, regardless of where they lived.
• Under the ancient laws of Cochin, citizens could be impaled alive for selling cows to Europeans. The punishment reflected the force of local religious customs and the friction between the native administration and early European traders.
• Ancient Cochin’s legal system prescribed execution by an iron hook driven through the chin for low-caste murderers, who were suspended until they died. No death sentence could be carried out until the condemned person personally acknowledged its justice; if they refused, torture was legally applied to convince them.
• In a report from 1793, the Rajah of Cochin described the standard punishment for minor thieves: after six months to a year in prison, a portion of their flesh or their nose was surgically removed before release, leaving a permanent physical mark of the crime.
• The tenacious mud bank of Narakkal, on Vypeen Island’s coast, acts like an immense spring or a stiff piece of jelly beneath the sea. It yields to rough ocean waves, absorbs their force, and keeps the surrounding water calm even during violent monsoons, creating a natural maritime haven.
• In 1550, a major campaign against Cochin by the Samorin of Calicut was delayed while his astrologers tried to name a fortunate day for battle. The delay gave the Cochin and Portuguese forces time to consolidate their positions and rescue the Ranee, the Rajah’s aunt, whom the Portuguese had held in their custody.
• In 2015 the airport became the world’s first fully solar powered airport, with the inauguration of a dedicated solar plant.
• The Mattancherry terminal is built entirely on water, near the Dutch Palace.
• The Dutch Cemetery in Fort Kochi contains 104 tombs and epitaphs and is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.
• The building that houses Mocha Art Café dates to the 16th century and was built to house the rabbis of the Paradesi Synagogue.
• The building that houses Seagull was once the home and workshop of a French rosewood exporter, C J Revel.
• The mango lassi at Rawal Lassi Joint is seasonal and depends on the supply of fresh mangoes.
• The place is known for mutton chaps and square porotta.
• The café serves Cochini Jewish cuisine blended with Kerala cooking.
• Entering the courtyard of the Mattancherry Palace, a visitor finds a temple dedicated to Goddess Bhagavati, the protective deity of Kochi’s ruling house.
• The blue glow on Kumbalangi’s backwaters, called kavaru, comes from a high concentration of the micro-plankton Noctiluca scintillans.
• A.B. Salem Road in Kochi is named after Abraham Barak Salem, the Cochin Jewish campaigner.
• Vasco da Gama died in Cochin on Christmas Eve 1524 of malaria, and his body was first buried at St Francis Church in Fort Kochi.
• In 1818, plaster fell from a wall of the Kadavumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue on Synagogue Lane, exposing a Hebrew inscription tablet.
• The light started as an oil lamp at Fort Kochi in 1839 and was replaced by a structure at Puthuvype in 1979.
• The Parade Ground was earlier called the Barraca Maidan, or barracks ground.
• The museum is housed in a pair of former bomb shelters, and model battleships stand in the garden outside.
• Kashi Art Cafe and Gallery opened in 1997 in Fort Kochi, conceived as both a café and a gallery.
• Remnants of Fort Immanuel are kept in the basement of the museum.
• On 3 January 1653, St Thomas Christians tied a long rope to a standing cross in Mattancherry and swore not to submit to the Portuguese.
• Fort Emmanuel, whose ruins lie on Fort Kochi Beach, was the first European fort built in Asia.
• David Hall is all that remains of three 17th-century Dutch-era houses built from material taken from demolished Portuguese churches.
• The temple’s bronze bell is about four feet in diameter and six feet in height.
• Eleven of the Chinese fishing nets remain, down from around twenty, a local councillor said in 2025.
• Chellanam’s coastal defence is a 7.36-kilometre structure of granite revetments and concrete tetrapods, costing ₹344 crore.
• Sri Krishna Café serves vegetarian breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Sri Krishna Café is on Palace Road, Mattancherry.
• Sri Krishna Café opens at 8am and shuts at 9.30pm every day.
• Gelato Pillai offers dine-in and takeaway, and serves coffee.
• Gelato Pillai opens at 11am and shuts at 11pm every day.
• Rinoos Cool Bar offers dine-in and takeaway.
• Rinoos Cool Bar opens at 11am and shuts at 2am.
• Rinoos Cool Bar is at 4/415 Pullupalam Road, Mattancherry.
• The café’s website sells cakes by weight, in 500g, 850g and 900g sizes.
• The café is in the grounds of David Hall, a gallery in a restored 17th-century Dutch colonial bungalow.
• Pandhal Café & Deli is at 264 Napier Street, opposite the Parade Ground, Fort Kochi.
• Pandhal Café & Deli is open from 8am to 10.30pm every day.
• Pandaris Biriyani & Caterers offers dine-in and takeaway, and serves lunch and dinner.
• Pandaris Biriyani & Caterers is on Moulana Azad Road, Mattancherry.
• Loafers Corner Cafe has a price range of ₹200 to ₹400.
• Loafers Corner Cafe is on Princess Street, Fort Kochi.
• Loafers Corner Cafe is open 9am to 10pm every day.
• Cafe 27 is an inexpensive cafe serving vegetarian food.
• Cafe 27 serves lunch, dinner and coffee, and offers dine-in, takeout and delivery.
• Cafe 27 is open from 10am to 8pm, and from 10.30am to 8pm on Sundays.
• B For Biriyani serves lunch and offers dine-in, takeout and delivery.
• B For Biriyani is open from 11.30am to 3.30pm every day.
• Hotel Aryaas Park is a vegetarian restaurant.
• Hotel Aryaas Park serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert, and offers both dine-in and takeout.
• Hotel Aryaas Park is open from 7.30am to 10.30pm every day.
• A meal at Arasta usually costs 200 to 400 rupees.
• Arasta serves breakfast and offers both dine-in and takeout.
• Arasta is open from 8.30am every day, until 10pm Monday to Thursday and until 11pm Friday to Sunday.
• Kerala Cafe on Rose Street has outdoor seating and takes reservations.
• The price range at Kerala Cafe on Rose Street is 200 to 1,000 rupees.
• Kerala Cafe on Rose Street is open from 8am to 10pm, every day of the week.
• The menu lists chattichoru at 250 rupees, a combination plate of rice, curries and spicy non-veg items served in a wide earthen pot.
• The menu lists fish pollichathu at 480 rupees, cooked with masala and coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaf and grilled.
• Fusion Bay is open from 1pm to 10pm every day of the week.
• A meal at Solar Café usually costs 200 to 400 rupees.
• Solar Café is open every day from 8am to 6.30pm.
• The shop is on Palace Road, opposite Haji Easa Haji Moosa school, in Mattancherry.
• The shop is open 8am to 9pm Monday to Saturday and 8am to 4pm on Sunday.
• The shop is on Fosse Road, Kunnumupuram Junction, in Fort Kochi.
• Scandy - Ice Candy is open every day from 10am to 1am.
• The menu lists masala dosa at 110 rupees and ghee roast dosa at 120 rupees.
• Samridhi@Kochi’s menu lists idli at 10 rupees and appam and plain dosa at 15 rupees each.
• Thudippu hosted a Chavittunadakam workshop on 26 September 2026 with children, adults and women of different age groups.
• The foundation’s fee structure considers the needs of underprivileged students, so fees are not the same for everyone.
• Thudippu’s regular in-person classes meet at its studio in Vennala, Ernakulam; the same team has a space inside Aikyam Space.
• Water Metro tickets can be bought with the Kochi Metro One card or a QR code booked through the Kochi One app, and fares run from 20 to 40 rupees.
• The Kakkanad Water Metro station is on Chittethukara, about 2 km from Kakkanad.
• The Vyttila to Kakkanad Water Metro service began on 27 April 2023.
• The Vyttila Water Metro station is beside the Vyttila Mobility Hub and the Vyttila metro station.
• The Vypin Water Metro station is on Vypin Island, near the Fort Kochi - Vypin Ro-Ro jetty.
• Water Metro fares run from 20 rupees to 40 rupees, and one Kochi Metro card covers both the boat and the metro train.
• The Vypin-High Court Water Metro line began service on 26 April 2023.
• The Vypin Water Metro station opened to the public on 26 April 2023, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated it.
• Single water metro fares run from 20 rupees to 40 rupees.
• A route from High Court runs through Bolgatty and Mulavukad North to South Chittoor, opened on 14 March 2024.
• The High Court to Willingdon Island and High Court to Mattancherry routes were inaugurated on 11 October 2025.
• The High Court station is near the Kerala High Court, which gives it its name, and 1.3 km from MG Road metro station.
• High Court Water Metro station was inaugurated on 25 April 2023 and opened to the public on 26 April 2023.
• A Kochi Water Metro ticket costs between 20 and 40 rupees.
• The Kochi Water Metro route from South Chittoor runs through Eloor to Cheranelloor.
• Cheranallur (Cheranelloor) is a Kochi Water Metro station, inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on 14 March 2024.
• Wikipedia describes the shrine as a small temple in the palace courtyard, dedicated to Pazhayannur Bhagavati.
• The shrine of Pazhayannur Bhagavathi stands in the central courtyard of Mattancherry Palace, the building known as the Dutch Palace.
• In the 2025-26 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Water Metro (ABC) was one of the new Fort Kochi venues.
• Blaise Joseph joined the Kochi Biennale Foundation’s festival team on 10 October 2018 to head the Art By Children programme, two months before the fourth Biennale opened.
• Fort Kochi Water Metro station opened to the public on 21 April 2024 as part of the first phase of the water metro system.
• The Art By Children art room at the Fort Kochi Water Metro station is open from 10am to 6pm every day.
• The airport handled more than 63% of Kerala’s air passenger traffic in 2025 and more than 11 million passengers in fiscal year 2025-26.
• KMRL feeder buses connect the airport with the metro network at Aluva Metro station.
• The renovated domestic Terminal 1 opened to travellers on 12 December 2018.
• The international Terminal 3 opened to travellers in March 2017, with a theme inspired by Thrissur Pooram and fifteen life-size fibre elephants at the departure area.
• Cochin International Airport is at Nedumbassery, Ernakulam district, about 25 km northeast of the city centre.
• Kulpreet Singh’s single-channel video Indelible Black Marks (2022-24) was shown at Anand Warehouse and documents stubble burning in Punjab.
• Parliament of Ghosts uses jute sacks repaired by women laborers from Mattancherry and discarded chairs from public institutions, restored by local carpenters.
• Anand Warehouse is a colonial-era godown in Mattancherry, and it hosted the Biennale’s Parliament of Ghosts.
• 111 Markaz hosted part of the main exhibition of the sixth Kochi-Muziris Biennale, curated by Nikhil Chopra with HH Art Spaces, Goa, featuring works by 66 artists and collectives.
• Air of Firozabad / Air of Palestine (2025) by Dima Srouji and Piero Tomassoni hangs hundreds of glass baubles from the ceiling at 111 Markaz; one is handblown in Palestine and the rest are made in Firozabad, India.
• 111 Markaz and Cafe on Bazaar Road in Mattancherry was one of the new venues for the sixth Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
• Mehboob was a Deccani Muslim who spoke Urdu at home.
• Hussain Koya is a founding member of the Mehboob Memorial Orchestra.
• The original track of Mehboob’s song ‘Akale aarum kaividum’ is kept in a record at the orchestra’s office.
• Mehboob Memorial Orchestra is housed in a brown building at Calvetty, opposite Aspinwall, which bears Mehboob’s name although he never lived there.
• The fare from Mattancherry Water Metro Station to High Court is 40 rupees.
• On the Kochi Water Metro network, the minimum ticket is 20 rupees and the maximum is 40 rupees.
• Kochi Water Metro boats run at about 8 knots on battery and 10 knots in hybrid mode.
• Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan opened Mattancherry Water Metro Station on 11 October 2025.
• The Dutch Cemetery in Fort Kochi is managed by the Church of South India and is normally kept closed; visitors may request access through St Francis CSI Church.
• Captain Joseph Ethelbert Winckler’s burial in 1913 is recorded as the last at the Dutch Cemetery in Fort Kochi.
• The Dutch Cemetery in Fort Kochi was established in 1724 and holds the graves of the Dutch community at Cochin and of later European residents.
• Los Angeles Café is open from 9am to 10pm every day.
• Kochi Books opens 10am to 7.30pm Monday to Saturday and 10am to 6.30pm on Sundays.
• A red sign with an arrow on Princess Street points up the staircase to Kochi Books.
• Kochi Books is upstairs at 1/591 Princess Street, above the ShopNsave store.
• Nettoor Toddy Shop is open from 8am to 8pm every day.
• A spice trader bought the building in 1910 and turned it into a warehouse.
• Let’s Kimchi serves Korean food.
• Let’s Kimchi opens 6pm to 10pm, Tuesday to Sunday, and is shut on Mondays.
• The cafe is on Gujarati Road in Mattancherry.
• Kayees Rahmathulla Cafe opens 11am to 3.30pm every day.
• Tibet Kitchen opens from noon until 10.30pm on the days its listing gives.
• GST is added to the cost of sweets and snacks at Shantilal S Mithaiwala.
• Shantilal S Mithaiwala opens 8.30am to 9.30pm Monday to Saturday and 8.30am to 4pm on Sunday.
• Seagull sits on Calvetty Road in Fort Kochi, near the Indian Coast Guard office and about 50 metres from Pepper House.
• Seagull is open every day of the week from 11am to 10pm.
• Rawal Lassi Joint opens from 8am to 9pm Monday to Saturday and from 8am to 12 noon on Sunday.
• Rawal Lassi Joint has no dine-in seating, and drinks are served from the roadside counter.
• Trouvaille’s own website lists pour-over coffee, apple crumble with ice cream and a full English breakfast on its menu.
• Vinod Sweets opens 8am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 8am to 4pm on Sundays.
• Vijaya Lakshmi Bhavan opens at 7am and shuts at 10.30pm every day.
• Tibetan Chef’s Restaurant opens at 12 noon on most days, at 11am on Wednesdays and at 1pm on Sundays, and closes at 10pm.
• Ravis Coffee Works is open Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6.30pm.
• The store’s website lists foodgrains, masalas and oil, beverages, baby care and kitchen goods as categories.
• Preethi Stores is at Kapithan House, Princess Street, Fort Nagar, Fort Kochi.
• The hotel’s website describes the building as a Christian tharavadu, an ancestral home more than 100 years old.
• The hotel’s website lists O Porto - The Bar under its dining options, inside the Mai House Heritage Hotel.
• O Porto opens every day from 10am to 11.30pm.
• Nooriya Hotel opens Tuesday to Sunday, 11.30am to 3pm and again from 7pm to 10pm.
• Club House Restaurant opens from 9:30am to 1am, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to Sunday.
• Balan Chettan Kada opens every day from 8am to 11pm.
• Bevco in Fort Kochi is open every day from 10:00 to 21:00.
• French Toast is on Saint Francis Church Road in Fort Kochi.
• French Toast opens 9am to 6pm on Mondays and from Wednesday to Sunday.
• Francis is on Queiros Street in Fort Kochi.
• Francis is open from 11am until midnight every day.
• Fort Paragon opens at 11am Monday to Saturday, at 8am on Sundays, and shuts at 11pm every day.
• The restaurant is inside the Forte Kochi hotel at 1/373, Princess Street, Fort Kochi.
• Jetty Restaurant is open from 7am to 11pm every day.
• The shop sits beside Fort Kochi’s Head Post Office.
• Idiom Book Sellers opens 9:30am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 10am to 6pm on Sundays.
• Café Le Te opens at 7:30 every morning and closes at 19:30 from Monday to Thursday and 21:30 from Friday to Sunday.
• The two old houses behind the café can be booked as rooms.
• Ezekiel House is a historic Jewish residence on Synagogue Lane, and its café is at the entrance.
• Chez Teapot is open daily from 8:30am to 10pm.
• Two other temples on either side of the Mattancherry Palace are dedicated to Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva.
• A temple of the royal deity Pazhayannur Bhagavathi is situated in the central courtyard of the Mattancherry Palace.
• The organisms give off light to attract mates and escape predators.
• Kavaru has been reported in the south-western region of Kumbalangi, Kallanchery, Anjilithara, Attathadom and Kulakkadavu.
• The glow is more pronounced in summer, when the salinity and viscosity of the backwaters increase.
• Sea sparkle can be seen along the backwaters off Kochi during March and April.
• Kerala Tourism says sea sparkle in Kumbalangi is likely after the rains, in September and October.
• Abraham Barak Salem died in 1967, aged 85, in Mattancherry, Kochi.
• The road was named in Salem’s honour after his death.
• Stories say secret tunnels run beneath Bastion Bungalow, but none have been found.
• The museum shows a Dutch kitchen and its utensils, and old cannons stand in the grounds.
• The heritage museum in Bastion Bungalow opened to the public in 2016.
• The State Archaeology Department declared Bastion Bungalow a protected monument in 1999.
• The Dutch captured Kochi in 1663 and began destroying the Portuguese fort.
• The British destroyed the fort walls in 1806 and left the bungalow standing.
• Kerala Tourism dates Bastion Bungalow to 1667, on River Road in Fort Kochi.
• Vypin is the 58th most densely populated island in the world.
• A bridge built in 2004 by the Goshree Islands Development Authority connects Vypeen Island to the mainland.
• The Vypin water metro station opened to the public on 26 April 2023.
• The Church of Our Lady of Hope was consecrated in 1605 by Bishop Dom Andrea de Santa Maria.
• Pallipuram Fort is the oldest existing European fort in India.
• Portuguese sailors built Pallipuram Fort in timber on 27 September 1503, and rebuilt it in stone by 1505.
• Heavy floods in 1341 formed Vypeen Island.
• The Pappanji effigy is burned at Vasco da Gama Square, Fort Kochi Beach or the Parade Ground at the end of the Cochin Carnival.
• The Cochin Carnival is officially inaugurated with the hoisting of the Indian flag at Vasco da Gama Square.
• The square has an open stage for cultural performances.
• The Chinese fishing nets stand on teak and bamboo poles.
• The Chinese fishing nets on the Fort Kochi waterfront are believed to have been introduced by Chinese traders.
• The whole congregation of the Kadavumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue emigrated to Israel in 1955, leaving the synagogue in disuse.
• The Kadavumbhagam Mattancherry Synagogue was completed in 1544 and is among India’s oldest synagogues.
• Entry to St. Francis Church is free, and it shuts on Sundays.
• When the Dutch took Kochi in 1663 they kept this church as a government church while demolishing the others.
• The Portuguese and Dutch gravestones were moved from the church floor to the walls to protect their inscriptions from wear.
• The gravestone of Vasco Fernandes Pimentel was for a time mistaken for Vasco da Gama’s, because it bore the name Vasco.
• Vasco da Gama died in Kochi in 1524 and was buried in this church, and after fourteen years his remains were moved to Lisbon.
• In 1506 the Raja of Cochin allowed the Portuguese viceroy Francisco de Almeida to rebuild the church’s wooden buildings in stone and masonry.
• St. Francis Church was originally built in 1503 and is one of the oldest European churches in India.
• The Italian Jesuit painter Fr Antonio Moscheni died on 15 November 1905, four days before the cathedral was inaugurated.
• The ceiling paintings show scenes from the Via Crucis, the Stations of the Cross.
• Pope John Paul II made the church a basilica by a decree dated 23 August 1984.
• The Dutch spared the church after taking Kochi in 1663 and used it as an arms storehouse.
• One granite pillar from the original church is preserved at the southeast corner of the basilica grounds.
• The foundation stone of Santa Cruz was laid in May 1505, on the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross.
• The Goshree bridges, about 3 km in total, link Vypin to Marine Drive in Kochi.
• Regular boat services run from Fort Kochi to Vypin Island.
• The lighthouse is open from 9am to 5pm, according to the place’s own listing.
• Puthuvype is an industrial area that holds an LNG terminal and an offshore pumping station for Kochi Port. Kerala has ten lighthouses, and the one at Puthuvype is the tallest.
• The lighthouse is near the beach and is open to visitors.
• The beach has not been developed for tourism, and local officials promote it as an alternative to Cherai Beach.
• The lighthouse stands less than half a kilometre from Puthuvype Beach.
• The lighthouse tower is 46 metres high and made of double-layered concrete.
• The second phase of the Chellanam sea wall was inaugurated in March 2026 but had not taken off by May.
• Houses near Puthanthodu Beach are patched each summer before the monsoon, a resident told a newspaper in May 2026.
• In 2022 the state chose breakwaters for Puthenthode and Chellanam Bazar, based on a scientific study of the coast.
• The first phase of the Chellanam sea wall runs from Chellanam harbour and ends at Puthenthode, near Kannamaly, on the north side.
• Francesco Clemente’s Pepper Tent (2014) was installed inside Pepper House.
• Pepper House comprises extensive studio facilities for artists’ production work.
• The restored Pepper House is home to a cafe, design shop and a library known as the Laboratory of Visual Art.
• Pepper House is one of the principal sites of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, alongside Aspinwall House and Anand Warehouse.
• Pepper House is two historic godowns, one facing the street and one facing the water, separated by a large courtyard.
• Pepper House lists its opening hours as 11:00 am to 7:00 pm.
• Visitors are expected to enter the Paradesi Synagogue barefoot.
• The synagogue and the Mattancherry Palace temple share a common wall.
• The copper plates kept at the synagogue, dated to the 10th century, record privileges granted to Joseph Rabban, the earliest known Cochin Jew.
• The Portuguese destroyed the synagogue in 1662, and the Dutch rebuilt it two years later.
• Ezekiel Rahabi brought the Chinese tiles from Canton in the 18th century.
• The synagogue floor is paved with hundreds of 18th-century hand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles, and each tile is unique.
• The Paradesi Synagogue was built in 1568.
• VOC stands for Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, meaning United East India Company.
• The first Kochi-Muziris Biennale, which began on 12 December 2012, had the Parade Ground as one of its venues.
• The 2011 census counted 10,144 people in Mattancherry.
• The Mattancherry Water Metro station is on Jew Town Road and is connected with High Court Terminal by water.
• Konkanis and Gujaratis live in Mattancherry alongside the Cochin and Paradesi Jews, and the Gujarati street is a cultural icon for Keralite Gujaratis.
• The Dutch took over Mattancherry in 1663.
• The only international pepper stock exchange in the world still functions in Jew Town, Mattancherry.
• Jew Street is known for its spice trade, handicrafts and antique shops, and its shops display vintage photographs and Chinese urns.
• Mattancherry is a historic ward of Kochi, about 9 km south-west of the city centre and just south of Fort Kochi.
• The palace was declared a central government protected monument in 1951.
• Only one wall separates the palace temple from the Paradesi Synagogue.
• The palace murals depict stories from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Puranic legends, and date from the 17th to 19th centuries.
• The Dutch rebuilt the palace under their rule in the 1660s, which is why it is also called the Dutch Palace.
• The Portuguese had the palace built around 1555, and the date is also given as 1545 in other sources.
• The Portuguese built the palace and gave it to the king of Cochin to appease him after they plundered a temple nearby.
• The Indian Navy’s history is traced to 1612, when the Indian Marine was set up in Surat.
• The museum fills two bunkers: one shows the maritime history of Kerala, the other the history and evolution of the Indian Navy.
• The museum sits inside INS Dronacharya, the Navy’s gunnery and missile school in Fort Kochi.
• The Indian Naval Maritime Museum was established in 2001 to create awareness of India’s maritime history.
• The kavaru glow comes from a dense concentration of the microplankton Noctiluca scintillans.
• Kumbalangi island covers 16 square km and had 42,367 people in the 2011 census.
• The island was first called Kumbalam Vilangi, because it formed between Kumbalam and the sea.
• The Kumbalangi project was set in motion in 2003, the same year Kerala selected several villages as model villages.
• More than 100 Chinese fishing nets stand in the backwaters facing Kumbalangi village.
• Kumbalangi is India’s first eco-tourism village, according to Kerala Tourism.
• The Kerala Kathakali Centre runs hands-on workshops on Kathakali make-up.
• The centre received initial support from the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation.
• In 2010 the centre opened a second institution near Santa Cruz Basilica in Fort Kochi.
• The Kerala Kathakali Centre was established in 1994 by Kalamandalam Vijayan.
• The 6pm Kathakali show at the Kerala Kathakali Centre costs ₹600.
• The building operates as an active participant in each exhibition rather than a neutral backdrop.
• Edgar Pinto runs the house as a site for contemporary art, alongside the Kashi Art Galleries in Fort Kochi.
• Sea A Boiling Vessel was shown in the house in 2022.
• Ishara House opened in the building with Amphibian Aesthetics, which ran from 13 December 2025 to 31 March 2026.
• A meal for two at Kashi Art Cafe and Gallery costs about ₹1,000.
• Kashi Art Cafe and Gallery is open every day from 8:30am to 10pm.
• Artist Rajan Krishnan’s first solo show was held at Kashi Art Gallery in Fort Kochi in 2004.
• The architect Karl Damschen’s office upgraded the Kashi Art Cafe in Fort Kochi between 2012 and 2014.
• Kashi Art Gallery in Fort Kochi was founded by Anoop Skaria and Dorrie Younger.
• The café is housed in a restored Dutch-style building that opens onto a leafy courtyard.
• Many of the sculptures and precious-metal objects on show were contributed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
• Its processional cross, made of silver and wood, dates from the 17th century and came from Santa Cruz Cathedral in Fort Kochi.
• The museum has five sections: Altar, Treasure, Procession, Civil Life and Cathedral.
• The museum was set up through the efforts of Dr Joseph Kureethara, the late Bishop of Kochi, to protect and show Portuguese heritage.
• The church holds a veneration of the Holy Cross at 7:30 pm on the first Friday of every month.
• Tradition says the Mattancherry cross bent in sympathy with the oath-takers, which gave the church its popular name.
• The cross at Holy Cross Church in Mattancherry has stood since 1550, according to the church.
• There is no entry fee and no closing time for the Guardians mural, and a walk along it takes 15 to 20 minutes.
• The mural’s closing event was a Fearless Feast held at the Coast Guard Office gate on Calvathy Road.
• The Guardians mural belongs to Fearless’s long-running climate justice focus area, titled At the Root.
• Fearless Foundation for the Arts was founded in 2012 and has co-created over 52 murals across more than 20 countries.
• The Fort Kochi wall was described by Homegrown as the biggest mural in the city.
• Ten Fearless Ambassadors from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Myanmar painted the Guardians mural.
• The mural runs along a 200-metre compound wall of the Indian Coast Guard Office in Fort Kochi.
• The Kochi-Muziris Biennale lists the Parade Ground among its exhibition sites.
• The Cochin Carnival is held at Fort Kochi every year in the last week of December.
• The tricolour was hoisted at the Parade Ground in 1947, and the ground then became a sporting arena.
• The Portuguese, Dutch and British colonists all held military parades and drills on the Parade Ground.
• The Parade Ground is an open ground of about four acres next to St Francis Church.
• Fort Kochi takes its name from Fort Manuel, the fort the Portuguese built here.
• The Dutch reduced the old Portuguese town and destroyed most of the public buildings the Portuguese had built.
• The Dutch made Fort Kochi the capital of Dutch Malabar after capturing it in 1663.
• The Portuguese held Fort Kochi until 1663, when the Dutch captured the territory.
• By 1806 the Dutch, and later the British, had destroyed most of the fort walls and bastions.
• The walls of Fort Manuel were double rows of coconut tree stems, with earth rammed between them.
• Construction of Fort Manuel began on 26 September 1503.
• The Fort Kochi Water Metro station is near Fort Kochi beach and connects to High Court station.
• The Water Metro route from High Court to Fort Kochi is 3.5 kilometres long and has two stations.
• At the Cochin Carnival, a giant Papanhi effigy is burned at midnight to mark the end of the year and welcome the New Year.
• The founders of the Cochin Carnival decided to hold a beach festival with a programme at Fort Kochi beach.
• A section of Fort Kochi Beach is under the control of the Indian Navy and is not accessible to visitors.
• Each Chinese fishing net on Fort Kochi Beach is a shore-operated lift net about 10 metres tall, and a team of up to six fishermen operates each one.
• The museum’s visiting time is 9.00 to 1.00 and 2.00 to 4.30, and it is closed on Mondays and national holidays.
• The museum has two colonial-era cannons and a tunnel in its basement.
• The British named the building Bastion Bungalow and used it as a residence and office for government officials.
• The Dutch destroyed the Portuguese Fort Immanuel in 1663, and only the Stormberg Bastion survived.
• The heritage museum opened to the public in 2016.
• The state archaeology department declared the building a protected monument in 1999.
• The Dutch built Bastion Bungalow on the site of Stromberg Bastion, at the northern end of the Portuguese Manuel Fort.
• Shihab said the gallery had neither sales nor publicity in its final years, and that other galleries had come up in Kochi.
• Draavidia closed around the first Kochi-Muziris Biennale after about 100 shows, and reopened on 11 August with a show called Kalayanam.
• Draavidia calls itself the first gallery of contemporary art in Kochi.
• Draavidia Arts Gallery says it opened in 1997 in Jew Town, Kochi, founded by the poet T. M. Shihab.
• Paryushan, an eight-day self-purification festival, is held at Dharmanath Jain Temple every year.
• Some tourism listings give the temple’s build date as 1960, which is the Vikram Samvat year rather than the Gregorian one.
• Dharmanath Jain Temple is run by the Cochin Swetamber Murtipujak Jain Sangh.
• Visitors are admitted to Dharmanath Jain Temple from 11:00 to 12:30 each day.
• The main idol at Dharmanath Jain Temple is Dharmanatha, the 15th Tirthankara.
• Hirubai Jivraj Dhanji built the Dharmanath Jain Temple in 1904, in memory of her husband.
• David Hall was one of the venues of the first Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
• The garden café at David Hall serves fruit platters, French toast and appam with veggie stew, at ₹120 to ₹350.
• The walls of David Hall are three feet wide, and its windows have four columns each.
• David Hall was built around 1695 by the Dutch East India Company.
• The six-day Araat festival was introduced to commemorate the installation of the idol and is still observed.
• The idol was brought back to the temple on 7 February 1853, after a lengthy legal dispute.
• The Portuguese destroyed the temple in 1662, and it was rebuilt in 1663 during the Dutch reign.
• The temple was built in 1599 to house the idol of Venkateshwara.
• Each Chinese fishing net structure in Kochi is at least 10 metres high, with a cantilever that holds a net over the sea and stones on ropes as counterweights.
• In November 2025 a wooden platform at Vasco da Gama Square gave way and seven people, including women, fell into the backwaters; fishermen pulled them out.
• Of the eleven surviving nets, three have been fully rebuilt in fresh timber, six run on iron bars, and two survive only as coconut-log pillars.
• The Pallithode-Chellanam-Kochi Beach Road, also State Highway 66, connects the village.
• Chellanam harbour is one of the main fishing centres in Kochi.
• Cyclone Tauktae submerged homes in Chellanam, and the village opened a relief camp at St. Mary’s School.
• Close to 120 displaced families have returned to Chellanam since the seawall was finished.
• The Kochi International Marina on Bolgatty Island can host up to 34 yachts.
• Goshree bridges connect Bolgatty Island to mainland Ernakulam and to Vallarpadam.
• A nine-hole golf course was set up in 1923 around Bolgatty Palace.
• Bolgatty Palace opened as a heritage hotel resort in 1976.
• The British leased Bolgatty Palace in 1909 and made it the seat of the British Resident of Kochi.
• Bolgatty Palace stands at the southern tip of the island.
• Dutch traders built Bolgatty Palace in 1744.
• Aspinwall House was one of the venues of the first Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012, where it showed the work of 44 artists.
• Aspinwall & Company Ltd was founded in 1867 by the English trader John H. Aspinwall, and its business premises were on this site.
• The Great Fire of Cochin on 4 January 1889 destroyed the warehouses of Aspinwall & Co., and the house was rebuilt after it.
• Bombay has the world’s second-largest concentration of Art Deco buildings, after Miami.