Car travels in Gunadala, doorstep pickup.

Gunadala is the hill with the Matha shrine on it — Our Lady of Lourdes, a hundred years old, and one of the largest Marian pilgrimage sites in the country. For most of the year it is an ordinary residential pocket in the east of the city. For three days every February it is not: the feast on the 9th, 10th and 11th draws close to a million people, the procession runs along Eluru Road towards Ramavarappadu Junction, and the roads around the hill stop working in the way they normally do. Anyone travelling through Vijayawada in that window should know it before they plan the day, not during.

Pickup tip — In festival week, name a point away from the shrine approach — the closer lanes are closed or crawling, and a driver who agrees to meet you at the gate will be stuck a kilometre from it.