Europe By The Hooghly

Just two hours’ drive from Kolkata, along the bends and sweeps of the river, lie historical towns with architectural remnants of their heydays as trading posts and cultural hubs of the Portuguese, Dutch, French and British empires. Spend a day imbibing their charms.

- Sugato Mukherjee

Even at 6 am, the traffic on the Grand Trunk Road is chaotic. It is hard to believe that this narrow road, barely 40 feet wide at places, is a National Highway that saunters beyond the dusty business districts of Howrah and through the old settlements of Bally, Uttarpara and Konnagar in West Bengal. On my right, glimpses of the grey expanse of the Ganga are ensconced between rambling old mansions of wealthy Bengali families who settled on the banks of the holy river during the days of the Raj.

On a mid-autumn Sunday morning, I am out to explore a string of riverside towns—within a two-hour drive from Kolkata—that had served as trading posts for European adventurers and seafarers even before the British ventured to this part of the world.

THE DANISH DEN

The first pit-stop of my drive along the west bank of the Hooghly, as the Ganga is known during her final stretch to the sea, is Serampore—a ubiquitous suburban town with listless structures and potholed streets that belies the fact that it was once a centre of education, linguistics and publishing in the early 19th century. The Danish East India Company established its colony in Serampore, renamed it ‘Fredericksnagore’ in honour of King Frederick V of Denmark, and ruled the town from 1755 to 1845. The historic town square housed the Governor’s House and other magnificent buildings built in neo-classical style—picturesque white mansions with expansive porticoes to the south, and windows dressed with Venetian blinds painted green. These were mostly demolished by the British when the Danes were compelled to hand over the town to them in 1845 for a paltry ₹1.2 million.