Murshidabad

Air : Nearest airport - Kolkata 223 km
Rail and Road : Easily accessible by rail (197 km ) and road. Several buses ply between Kolkata and Behrampore. Behrampore, the district headquarters, is about 12 km from Murshidabad

MURSHIDABAD, the last capital city of independent Bengal was named after Nawab Murshid Quli Khan, the Dewan of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. I never thought of going to Murshidabad not because I dnt like to but because of my ignorance regarding the great history of that place. Murshidabad in my memory was those labours who build homes with some different tone of saying. Its just by chance that my work takes me to there and then realize its historical value.
The Hazarduari Palace, or the palace with a thousand doors is the chief tourist attraction of Murshidabad. This three-storey palace was built in 1837 by Duncan McLeod for the Nawab Najim Humaun Jah, descendent of Mir Zafar. It has thousand doors (among which only 900 are real) and 114 rooms and 8 galleries, built in European architectural style. The Hazarduari Palace is 41 acres. It is now a museum and has all exquisite collection of armoury, splendid paintings, exhaustive portraits of the Nawabs, various works of art including beautiful works of ivory (Murshidabad school) of China (European) and many other valuables. The Armoury has 2700 arms in its collections of which only few are displayed. Swords used by Shiraj-ud-Daulla and his grandfather, Nawab Alivardi Khan, can be seen here.
One thing that attracts me between the palace and the Imambara is a small mosque, ‘Madina’, with colourful tiled verandahs. The Mosque has an ornamented replica of Hazrat Muhammad's tomb at Madina.
One get to hear a lot of stories which I really enjoyed from childrens where of ghost stories related to one of the Murshidabad historical value. Great people and sweet children but one warning food prepared at home is never enough for soul shows the bengali culture food