Madurai, an ancient Indian city firmly rooted in heritage and age-old customs, is every tourist's delight. Dotted with several ancient temples, the place boasts of many star attractions. Busy markets and streets stocked up with readymade garments, brassware, handicrafts and stone carvings offers a riveting shopping experience to the people here. Some of the lanes boast of handicraft showrooms and emporiums that offer an array of local artifacts and handloom products. Madurai teems with energetic crowd and busy shopping lanes. A tourist can rely on auto rickshaws, local buses to move in and around the city. While shopping, do indulge in the act of haggling since vendors may try to fool some tourists by charging exorbitantly. The tourism destination is also equally famous for its fragrant jasmine flowers and if you can take time off your busy travel schedule, do make a visit to the colorful Madurai flower market where you can see a wide variety of flowers including the famous Madurai Jasmine. Scroll down the write-up to find out which are the top shopping spots in Madurai.
Shopping Places In Madurai
Puthu Mandapam
Situated on the Eastern side of the renowned Meenakshi temple is the Puthu Mandapa, meaning 'New Hall'. Here you can find rows of souvenir shops selling brass, bronze, and aluminum vessels besides hordes of tailors completely engrossed in stitching the clothes. Puthu Mandapam remains crowded most of the times and is worth visiting and capturing all the action here.
Cottage Arts Emporium
To buy some authentic and gorgeous looking handcraft items, step inside this beautiful emporium. Besides brass works, wonderful figurines and object d' arts, you can also see paintings depicting scenes from mythological works. Jamavars and pure Kashmir shawls are also on display. Though the price tag of these above products is a bit on the expensive side, they are absolutely worth splurging on since the quality is unparalleled.
Hajeemosa
Hajeemosa, the famous shopping landmark in Madurai, has a valuable range of apparels. Both men and women flock in huge numbers to check out and purchase lovely fabrics available in different attractive designs and colors. Local inhabitants and even foreigners stop over at this center to pick up their favorite stuffs. Set up in the year 1874, Hajeemosa is particularly very popular for Banaras silks and Kanchipuram saris.
ThangaMayil Jewellery
Madurai, besides being renowned for silks and shrines is also popular for jewelries. One of the biggest jewelry shops in the city - Thangamayil Jewellery is nestled in Nethaji Road. Impressive collection of gold, diamond and silver jewelry in attractive shapes and designs are on sale here. Besides this, exotic wall hangings, platinum rings and lucky gemstones can also be purchased from ThangaMayil Jewellery.
Rajmahal Silks
Rajmahal Silks being a leading textile house of the city has an assortment of pure silk saris, shirts, dhotis, blouse materials, party wears and casual collection. The other textile shops well-known in Madurai are Madurai Silks, Nalli Silks, Gandhi Silks and
Bhagyalakshmi Silks. During the time of auspicious occasions and festivals, the store offers huge discount on its products.
Poompuhar Sales Showroom
Poompuhar Sales Showroom located opposite Railway Junction near West Veli Street has an impressive lineup of handloom products. Browse through the various products such as brass lamps, stone carvings, woodcarvings, Thanjavur paintings, papier mache items, jute letter holders, sandalwood keychains, etc. The prices of the souvenirs can range anywhere between Rs 400/- to Rs 400,000/-. The other similar showrooms you can probably make a visit to are Cottage Industries Exposition Ltd (Nethaji Road,) Surabi Handicrafts (West Veli Street), Khadi Gramayog Bhavan (Town Hall Road) and All India Handicrafts Emporium (Town Hall Road ).
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