Mumbai's history is layered in stone: Buddhist monks carved Kanheri in living basalt, the Portuguese fortified Bassein, the British filled the creeks between seven islands, and mill workers made Bombay India's first industrial city.
109 Buddhist caves cut into a single basalt hill between the 1st century BCE and 10th century CE, with Cave 3's chaitya hall, colossal standing Buddhas and rock-cut cisterns and water channels. Open 07:30–17:00, closed Mondays.
An 8th-century rock-cut Shaiva shrine converted into a Portuguese church in 1544, when Franciscans built a chapel over the sanctum and chiselled crosses beside the Nataraja panels. The layered defacement is the point — two faiths in one rock.
One of the earliest Hindu cave temples in India, cut around 520–550 CE and larger in floor area than Elephanta, with a 240ft pillared hall reached through a stepped passage. Now half-swallowed by slum housing and still an active shrine.
A rectangular freshwater tank dug in 1127 CE under the Silhara dynasty, fed by an underground spring in the middle of the sea-girt Malabar Hill. Stone steps, deepmalas (lamp towers) and small temples ring the water; cremations still happen at one corner.
Built 1915–1922 as the Prince of Wales Museum in Indo-Saracenic style with a Bijapur-inspired dome, holding Indus Valley seals, Gandhara sculpture and Mughal miniatures. Open 10:15–18:00 daily; audio guide in six languages.
F.W. Stevens's Victorian Gothic railway cathedral, finished in 1888 after ten years and named Victoria Terminus for the Queen's Golden Jubilee. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2004; look for the stone lion, tiger and gargoyles carved by JJ School students.
Gandhi's Bombay base from 1917 to 1934, where he launched the 1919 Rohlatt satyagraha, began spinning khadi and was arrested in 1932. His second-floor room is preserved with charkha, floor mattress and book collection; 20,000-volume library downstairs.
The 85m Venetian-Gothic tower, funded by broker Premchand Roychand in 1878 and named for his mother, once chimed 'Rule Britannia' over the University quadrangle. The 1878 High Court beside it hides a carved monkey holding the scales of justice.
Mumbai's second-oldest Sephardic synagogue, built in 1884 by Jacob Sassoon for the Baghdadi Jewish community that ran the city's docks and mills. Restored in 2019 to its cobalt-blue exterior with Belgian stained glass and Minton floor tiles.
An East Indian Catholic village of Portuguese-style wooden bungalows founded in the 1840s on land bought from the Khot family, once 65 houses and now fewer than 25. Ornate balconies, external staircases and crucifix shrines survive between towers.
Mumbai's oldest museum, opened 1872 as the Victoria & Albert Museum, with gilded Corinthian columns, a Minton-tiled floor and dioramas of 19th-century Bombay trades — the mill hands, dabbawalas and Koli fisherfolk who built the city.
The Parsi funerary forest where dakhmas have exposed the dead to vultures since 1672, and the Zoroastrian community that arrived from Persia and financed half of colonial Bombay's institutions. The grounds are closed to non-Parsis.