This is the famous beach of Puducherry. The 1.5 km long promenade is the pride of the city with several landmarks like the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, Dupleix, the elegant French war memorial and the 27 metre tall light house.
Avoid going there on holidays! It's beautiful but too crowded and dirty! Went there on New Year's eve and had to just run from there seeing the huge crowd of mostly locals. And when there is a huge crowd, you tend to come across many weird people who just keep staring at you for no reason as if you are an alien, they make you uncomfortable by their constant stare! I believe most of the locals gather there to celebrate cultural events there. So, if you wanna avoid all that, then avoid going on their holidays!Next day again we went there, it was pleasant, however place was untidy. But liked the breeze and stroll at that stretch in the evening.
Visited Pondi in January when the Chennai - Pondi classic car event was on. Pondi has a very colonial feel with many sad dilapidated buildings on the land side of the coast road. Hundreds of sellers of all sorts of food and junk were on the beach. The cars were interesting with many European makes represented and with hundreds of people around was a good couple of hours spent. Like all beach towns, it peters out on the north and south ends of town. The centre of the beach are has a memorial and some interesting stone carved pillars. Beyond the coast road, some interesting properties a visible. However a couple of hours is all you really need on a busy weekend. A run down and poorly maintained post french colonial town...
Promenade beach is nice to see, front part of the beach is filled with stones. Take care of your steps when you stand on the stones since those are slippery.
Seaside promenade is the landmark of Pondicherry. This is the beach area, the 1.5 km stretch is the main attraction of Pondicherry..
If you enjoy long walks + beach + waves sound this is a good place to end your day. Get tired walking before going to bed and after enjoying the really nice food this town has to offer. A great place to begin knowing the place and get confident on walking around.
It's the perfect place for a walk with the Ocean breeze and the hundreds of Indian people taking pictures, looking at the sea or simply talking together to benefit from the last lights of the day.
It's such a gift for pedestrians to walk freely on the Promenade. On a New Year eve, all ways lead here!
It was the last night at Pondi with friends and we wanted it to be special. Seaside Promenade was meant for it! With an enormous indoor sitting area and pleasant outdoor poolside kebab space the overall ambience was too good. And the food spread was plenty and varied. I specially liked the squid preparation and baked vegetables in white sauce in buffet menue. But there was only one option in soft drinks, could have kept another two types.
Class apart.. one of the most popular stretch of beachfront in the city of Puducherry.. Great place to jog walk in the mornings.. avoid evenings weekend.. get very busy.. and not to great to walk out between too much of crowd.