shopping

Madurai has many shopping spots like street bazaars, commercial shops and all-inclusive malls, from where you can buy souvenirs and things like handicraft jewelry, bangles, silk and cotton sarees and trendy clothes and accessories. Some popular shopping spots in the city to explore are:

• Puthu Mandapam – A 17th-century pillared entrance hall turned into a shopping/retail spot; It is mainly a clothes shopping spot which is filled with cloth stores and stalls with tailors, who stitch your clothes then and there, according to your preference, choices and measurements and give the completed clothing pieces within an hour or two.
  Apart from clothes, Pudhu Mandapam also has aluminium and bronze metal shops that sell crafted articles of these metals, which can be used as home decoration pieces (items like vases, figurines and other artefacts) or for Puja/prayer and religious occasions (items like lamps, idols of gods, etc).
• Avani Moola Street – A place to shop for authentic and beautiful handicraft artefacts from local dealers.
• Masi Street – A street bazaar filled with shops selling trendy clothes and quirky, fancy accessories (including jewellery, shoes, bags, etc).
• Chithirai Street – A popular shopping street in Madurai; and a favorite shopping hub of the locals for everything from clothes and accessories to electronics, décor items and foods.
• Rajmahal Silks – Silk sarees and clothes are popular all over Tamil Nadu; and Madurai being its cultural capital also has its own specialities when it comes to silk. Rajmahal Silks is one of the most popular spots for silk shopping in Madurai, especially for women’s clothing (Sarees, dress material, etc).

Madurai has some good malls too, though not too many. These are also great places to spend a day and fulfil shopping and entertainment needs with friends/family:

• Madurai Mart – A high-end mall (one of the biggest in the city) with top brand stores, multi-cuisine food courts and entertainment centres.
• Vishaal De Mall – A very popular mall – the largest in Madurai; it has multiple cinemas, shops, theme parks and restaurants.
• Milan’em Shopping Mall – Another popular mall in the city, with a collection of numerous stores of branded clothes, footwear, accessories and jewellery; and also, entertainment centres like water games for kids and food court with various restaurants serving multiple cuisines – both national and international.