The Old Courtyard Hotel

Activities

• Enjoy the live courtyard concerts (every night in high season and whenever there’s enough interest off-season)
  
• Spend a day and night chugging through the wide Kerala backwaters on a traditional houseboat, with smaller snakeboats taking you down village channels
  
• Visit Kodanad elephant training camp and waterfalls (35-40km away)
  
• Catch martial arts displays and music concerts at the nearby cultural centre
  
• Tour Mattancherry Palace, a 16th century Dutch building whose interior quad now houses a Hindu temple
  
• See India’s oldest European church, the 16th century St Francis, which is only a few minutes' walk from the hotel
  
• Browse through atmospheric shops selling spices and crafts and explore the weekly antique market
  
• Take a cab to the not very PC-sounding Jewtown (3km away) for mirrors and hand-woven bedspreads
  
• Relax with an Ayurvedic massage or treatment at one of the local centres
  
• Hop on a cruise boat or ferry to islands such as Bolghatty, which has an 18th century palace and a pre-bookable golf course
  
• Visit the huge and houseboat-dotted Vembanadu lake (an hour’s drive away)