Mumbai Full-Day Sightseeing City Tour

Gateway of India and the Colaba waterfront

The Gateway of India is Mumbai's best-known landmark, a triumphal arch of yellow basalt standing on the Apollo Bunder waterfront in Colaba. It was built to mark a British royal visit in 1911 and completed in 1924 in the Indo-Saracenic style, mixing Hindu, Islamic and Gujarati details. In 1948 the last British troops left India through this arch, which gives it a special place in the country's history.

Facing the Gateway rises the grand domed heritage hotel opened in 1903, one of the city's most photographed buildings, and the harbour behind is busy with ferries leaving for the Elephanta Caves. This is the first stop of the Mumbai city tour, with about fifteen minutes for photos along the promenade. Early morning, when this tour arrives, is the best time to visit the Gateway of India before the crowds and the heat build up.

Kala Ghoda, the Oval Maidan and the Fort district

North of Colaba lies the Fort district, the old heart of colonial Bombay. In Kala Ghoda, the city's art quarter, you pass the domed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya museum, the Jehangir Art Gallery and the Gothic Revival David Sassoon Library. The streets are lined with stone buildings, galleries and small design shops, and the area hosts a large arts festival every February.

At the Oval Maidan two architectural worlds face each other across the cricket grounds: on one side the Victorian Gothic Rajabai Clock Tower and the Bombay High Court, on the other a row of Art Deco apartment blocks from the 1930s. Together they form the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2018. Nearby, at Horniman Circle, the Asiatic Society library sits behind a neoclassical colonnade.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CST)

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, still widely called Victoria Terminus or VT, is one of the finest railway stations in the world. Completed in 1888, it combines Victorian Gothic arches, turrets and stained glass with Indian motifs such as carved peacocks, monkeys and lotus flowers, all crowned by a great central dome. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 and remains the headquarters of the Central Railway.

It is also a working station, used by millions of commuters on Mumbai's suburban trains. Your guide takes you inside for about ten minutes to feel the energy of the concourse and to point out the best viewpoint for photos of the facade. The building is named after the seventeenth-century Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, a hero of the region, after whom the city's airport and main museum are also named.

Crawford Market and Mani Bhavan

Crawford Market, officially Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai, was completed in 1869 and is one of the oldest markets of the city. Under its Norman Gothic clock tower and stone friezes showing Indian farmers at work, traders sell fruit, vegetables, spices, dry fruits and household goods. A fifteen-minute stop lets you wander between the stalls and see the daily rhythm of local shopping.

Mani Bhavan, a quiet two-storey house in the green Gamdevi neighbourhood, is now a museum dedicated to India's independence movement. Between 1917 and 1934 it was the Mumbai base of the movement's best-known leader, and several key campaigns were planned here. Inside you see a library, a simple room kept as it was, photographs and a series of small dioramas telling the story of the struggle for independence. Entrance is included in this tour.

Marine Drive, Malabar Hill and the Banganga Tank

Marine Drive curves for about three and a half kilometres along Back Bay, lined with Art Deco buildings on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other. At night its street lights form the famous Queen's Necklace, and by day it is the city's favourite place for a breeze and a view. The road climbs from here to Malabar Hill, the most exclusive residential area of Mumbai.

On the hilltop the Hanging Gardens, laid out in 1881 over a reservoir, are known for hedges clipped into animal shapes and views over Back Bay. Hidden among the houses below lies the Banganga Tank, a stone-stepped pool fed by a spring and surrounded by small temples, first built in the twelfth century and linked to legends of the god Rama. It is a peaceful place and one of the oldest surviving sites in the city.

Dhobi Ghat at Mahalaxmi

The last stop is Dhobi Ghat at Mahalaxmi, built in 1890 and often described as the largest open-air laundry in the world. From a bridge above the railway tracks you look down on rows of concrete wash pens, each with its own flogging stone, where generations of dhobis, the traditional washermen, beat, rinse, dye and dry clothes for hotels, hospitals and households across the city.

Thousands of garments hang drying in long lines of colour, and the whole operation runs with no computers, using simple marks to return every item to its owner. This is a short photo stop of about five minutes on the way back, but it is one of the most memorable images of Mumbai. After it, the vehicle returns you to your hotel to end the tour.