Svatma

Thanjavur codified Carnatic music, gave Bharatanatyam its famous Thanjavur style and cast the Chola bronzes by the lost-wax method, and Svatma is built as a 34-room homage to all of it. The hotel sits in M. Chavadi, in the old heart of a city that became the Chola capital in 850 AD, a short ride from the Brihadeeswarar temple raised in the first decade of the eleventh century and the Saraswati Mahal Library with its 30,000-plus manuscripts.

A house arranged for the arts

Svatma styles itself as private rooms within a large family home rather than a hotel corridor: verandas, hallways and lounges for the sociable, with nooks and secluded corners for those who want to disappear with a book. Alongside the pool and yoga deck there is something rarer, a sound spa, a therapy room built around resonance that guests single out in the reviews the hotel publishes. Soukyam, the spa proper, runs four private treatment rooms plus a relaxation area for foot and shoulder massages, while Arogyam, the gym and yoga centre, teaches traditional asanas. Longer wellness stays are tailor-made under a consultant's advice.

Expect to experience an epiphany at Svatma and return refreshed, wrote the Tatler Travel Guide in 2020.

Tamil cuisine as an art form

The kitchen is pure vegetarian and organic by conviction, not compromise. Aaharam, the all-day restaurant, cooks behind a traditional display kitchen overlooking the pool, and its menu treats Tamil home cooking as a gallery subject: a la carte dishes arriving as bouquets of plated mini meals. For health-minded travellers wanting to eat their way through the region without a buffet in sight, it is a persuasive argument.

Around it lies the densest concentration of the UNESCO-listed Great Living Chola Temples, with Thiruvaiyaru, Kumbakonam and Srirangam within exploring range. Run by Chennai-based Sreshta Leisure, with a sister wellness retreat at Mayavaram practising Siddha healing, Svatma reads less like a place to sleep in Thanjavur and more like the city's arts scene given guest rooms.