Mylapore is the oldest continuously inhabited neighbourhood in Chennai, predating the British colonial city by millennia. While the colonial city developed around Fort St George to the north, Mylapore had been a settlement — and a major port — since at least the 1st century AD.
Today it's the cultural and religious heart of Tamil Brahmin Chennai. The Kapaleeswarar Temple is its centre — a Dravidian temple with a towering gopuram (gateway tower) that stands above the surrounding streets. The neighbourhood's lanes are dense with smaller temples, devotional flower markets, Carnatic music schools (Chennai is the world capital of this classical South Indian music form), silk sari shops, and filter coffee houses where the conversation about music and philosophy has been going on for generations.
Walking through Mylapore in the early morning — when the flower sellers are setting up outside the temple and the smell of jasmine fills the air — is one of the best things you can do in Chennai. The area around the tank (the temple's sacred pond) is particularly photogenic at dawn.
Mylapore is also where San Thome Basilica stands, creating an unusual proximity of major Hindu and Christian sacred sites within a few hundred metres of each other.