Marine Drive and Girgaum Chowpatty

Marine Drive is the long, curving seafront road that runs for about three kilometres along a natural bay, from Nariman Point in the south to Girgaum Chowpatty beach and the slopes of Malabar Hill in the north. Officially it is Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Road, although almost nobody calls it that. Built on reclaimed land and opened in 1940, it carries six lanes of traffic beside a broad, palm-lined promenade and a sea wall that is one of the city's favourite places to sit.

Walking the promenade is one of the simplest and most rewarding things to do in Mumbai. Early mornings are cool and calm for a walk or run, and in the evening the sea wall is the obvious place to sit and watch the sun go down over the Arabian Sea. After dark the curve of streetlights, seen from Malabar Hill or a high building, gives the road its nickname, the Queen's Necklace. The buildings along the landward side are worth a look too: several of the Art Deco apartment blocks, including Kapur Mahal, Zaver Mahal and Keval Mahal, built in the late 1930s, form part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the city's Victorian Gothic and Art Deco ensembles.

At the northern end, Girgaum Chowpatty is a wide city beach known for its snack stalls, especially bhel puri, the crisp, tangy puffed-rice snack that is a Mumbai classic. It is a place to stroll and eat rather than swim. In January the promenade is part of the route of the Mumbai Marathon.

A full walk from Nariman Point to Chowpatty takes about 45 minutes at an easy pace, longer if you stop. The best time is late afternoon into evening, when the heat eases and the light turns golden; weekday evenings are more relaxed than Sundays. The promenade is flat and paved, so it works for pushchairs and wheelchair users, though crossing the road needs care because traffic moves fast. During the monsoon the sea can be rough, so keep well back from the edge at high tide.

Churchgate is the natural starting point if you are coming from the Fort or Colaba, and taxis can drop you anywhere along the road. Wankhede Stadium, home of the Mumbai Cricket Association, is close by. From Chowpatty it is a short taxi ride up to the Banganga Tank on Malabar Hill or to Mani Bhavan in Gamdevi.