A thriving commercial strip in the centre of South Mumbai, Dadabhai Naoroji Road runs through the Fort District and cradles some of the city’s most cherished attractions, including Crawford Market and Flora Fountain. A collection of nineteenth-century Neo-Classical, Victorian and Gothic Revival buildings dots the thoroughfare from north to south, some with official heritage designations.

Crawford Market is the heart of South Mumbai, with hundreds of lively stalls selling everything from fresh mangoes to intricate sequined dresses, handcrafted wooden toys and electronics. A “market within the market”, Mangaldas Cloth Market offers wholesale prices on brilliantly coloured indigo cloths and linens, not far from the stone-domed Victoria Terminus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site adorned with turrets and arches replicating traditional Indian palace architecture. It’s worth a stroll to the southern end of D.N. Road to see the statue of Dadabhai Naoroji and the massive Flora Fountain depicting the Roman goddess Flora.

Most tourists arrive at Dadabhai Naoroji Road through Victoria Terminus, either via CST Rail or by bus. Driving by car is challenging, with very limited and expensive parking. Auto rickshaws are also available on D.N. Road, routinely picking up and dropping off shoppers and tourists at various spots along the way.

The road once bore the name Hornby Road about 200 hundred years ago, named after William Hornby, the Governor of Bombay in the late 1700s. It’s famous market, officially named “Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai” but still universally called Crawford Market, is itself an architectural wonder with brilliant red stone from Bassein and stone depictions of peasants working the wheat fields. John Lockwood Kipling, the father of famous writer Rudyard Kipling, designed at least portions of the main building, including its outdoor friezes and fountains, in the mid-1800s.