Lucknow
Capital Of Uttar Pradesh; Former Capital Of The Nawabs Of Awadh; UNESCO Creative City Of Gastronomy · Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
The capital of Uttar Pradesh and the former seat of the Nawabs of Awadh, who in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made it a centre of refined Urdu culture, poetry, music and cuisine that still defines the city's image. Its great monument is the Bara Imambara, built in 1784 as a famine relief project, with one of the largest vaulted halls in the world built without beams, and the Bhul Bhulaiya, a labyrinth of narrow passages above it. Nearby stand the Rumi Darwaza, a towering ceremonial gateway, and the Chota Imambara with its chandeliers. The Residency, the British compound besieged for months in the uprising of 1857, is preserved as a ruin, its walls still scarred by cannon fire. Lucknow's food is famous across India: galouti and tunday kebabs, Awadhi biryani, and sweets. Its craft is chikankari, delicate white embroidery sold in the bazaars of Aminabad and Chowk. The old city is best explored on foot in the early morning. Muharram processions are a major event in this historically Shia city.
Hussainabad, Chowk, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, 226003, India
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED; confirm before planning. The typical pattern: the Bara Imambara and the Hussainabad monuments open from morning to about sunset, with closures on some religious days and during certain prayers; the Residency, an ASI site, is open sunrise to sunset; markets in Aminabad and Chowk run into the late evening; many shops close one day a week. The traps: arriving at the Imambara on a religious closure day around Muharram, and reaching the Residency after its gates close.