Vizianagaram
— — a fort town that still keeps its own time.
Not only on a wall.
“An inland fort town in northern Andhra Pradesh, about sixty kilometres from the Bay of Bengal coast at Visakhapatnam. Vizianagaram was founded in 1712 by the Pusapati kings, and the old fort still anchors the centre. High walls, a moat, the Three Lanterns clock tower, narrow lanes that open into temple courtyards. The Sirimanu festival pulls the city outdoors in October. The rest of the year, it is quiet and unhurried.
Vizianagaram, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Vizianagaram is the headquarters of its namesake district in northern Andhra Pradesh, lying about 60 km north of Visakhapatnam and roughly 18 km inland from the Bay of Bengal. The 2011 Indian census counted just over 228,000 residents in the city, with about 2.3 million across the surrounding district. The Champavathi River runs east of town toward the sea, and the Eastern Ghats rise to the west. The city sits on the Howrah–Chennai rail line and the Chennai–Kolkata national highway corridor.
Pusapati Vijayarama Raju founded Vizianagaram in 1712 and laid out the fort, a square enclosure with high stone walls and a moat at the heart of the town. The Pusapati family ruled the surrounding zamindari into the twentieth century, and the Maharaja's College they founded in 1857 still operates. The fort grounds hold the Three Lanterns clock tower, the durbar hall, and several Pusapati-era temples. Just outside the walls stands the Pydithalli Ammavari temple, built for the family's tutelary goddess.
Each October, on the Tuesday after Vijayadashami, the city holds Sirimanu Utsavam, a festival honouring the goddess Pydithalli Ammavaru that has been observed since the eighteenth century. The temple priest is seated atop a tall wooden pole — the sirimanu, often thirty feet or more — and carried through the streets in a chariot procession watched by lakhs of pilgrims. The route runs from the fort gate to the Pydithalli temple. Vizianagaram is also the birthplace of the Telugu writer Gurajada Apparao, born here in 1862.