Mattancherry Palace

On the last day of Kochi, I thought of taking it a little easy and spent my day doing a more slow paced travel. To avoid the sun as much as possible, I stepped out after noon and headed to the Mattancherry Palace. Before entering the palace I grabbed some delicious breakfast at a café and got some nice views of the pretty streets.

I did see a plenty of tourists who looked curious to buy some souvenirs despite the heat. I also saw some interesting sculptures representing the local life (as in the picture below).

I think the name of the Palace was pretty fascinating itself and I expected it to be a structure constructed by some ruler from Kochi but to my surprise it was actually constructed by the Portuguese in the year 1555!

It is called the Dutch Palace now because it was renovated by the Dutch after taking control from the Portuguese. It was actually given as a gift to the King of Kochi to compensate for the destruction of a temple nearby. The palace features both European and Kerali architectural styles.

The entrance fee was about 5-10 Rupees (I don't remember exactly) and it constitutes of a number of interesting things such as paintings depicting scenes from Ramayana and Mahabharata, dresses of the Kings, stamps, coins, weapons and much more.

The artworks below were painted (3D Paintings as they were being called) in such a way that they follow the eyes of a viewer and gives an illusion as if the subject's position has altered. I actually gave it 3 walks to test, confirm and reconfirm. The angle of the shoes, face and body and eyes moved from left to right as I walked in the same direction! How cool is that! It was a little freaky but super amazing too :)

I tried getting some shots of the detail of the clothing which in my opinion was just too pleasing to watch. The expressions, the dressing and even the composition of the large paintings were magnificent and probably the most impressive things for me.