Traditional House Of Old Kolkata. Editorial Photo

Kolkata is home to the Bengali community widely known for their sentiments, critique and intellect. This apparently slow moving city - with its heavily conjested streets, unplanned localities and batches of crumbling buildings from the colonial past - is not a typical tourist's paradise. Particularly the North Calcutta Walking Tour takes you through the meandering lanes of north Calcutta. On to the hidden courtyards of merchants’ houses, steeped in 300 years of history. The visitor will also experience a slice of the warm, bustling city’s life, as he will walk into traditional Bengali homes and meet residents. Built by Bengali merchants, wealthy from commerce with the Company, the houses on the tour are characterized by well-decorated gates; central courtyards with projecting cast-iron balconies covered with wooden awnings, and stained glass windows. A city of love and warmth, sorrow and despair, dreams and hopes, poverty and squalor, grandeur and glory, Calcutta is compelling, effervescent, teeming with life and traditions a medley of moods, styles, cultures, politics, industry and commerce.