One of the delights about Calcutta is that the city is beside a large river - the Hooghly, a distributary of the great Ganga. It's not obvious because the city is so large. Many people seem only to visit the river to cross over the Howrah or New Howrah bridges. That's beginning to change with developments such as the Millennium Park.

One of my favourite trips for visitors from Britain is to take a tourist boat upriver from the Millennium Park. You can see and hear much of the city. But it's muted - there's less bustle on the ghats, apart from people washing in the river. The main distractions at dusk - when we tend to go - are fisherman putting out their nets, and the small ferries that take people across the river.

It's not so different from London. Just before I arrived in Calcutta last summer, I took a "river bus" up the river Thames from just by Westminster Bridge to meet friends in another part of the city. It was a sunny summer evening and I was in no hurry, otherwise I might have gone by the "tube", London's underground railway system.

There were a lot of people on the boat. I chatted to my neighbours, which you don't tend to do on the tube. Some of them, like me, were on the river bus for the first time. Others travelled more regularly as it was the most convenient form of transport between where they lived and worked. We agreed that it was a more soothing way to travel around our city.

The Hooghly at Calcutta is still a working river, whereas the Thames in London isn't any longer. The freight business moved to purpose-built container and bulk cargo ports down the Thames estuary at Tilbury in the 1960s. The Thames is being reclaimed for passengers and the old dock areas have been extensively rebuilt. I suppose that will happen in time to Calcutta once the deep-water port at Tajpur is developed.

Upstream of London, the Thames is a river for pleasure boats. Although it is a much smaller river than the Hooghly, it's a busy waterway in the summer as tourists enjoy the journey by boat through the locks on the Thames. Alongside the river are such attractions as Windsor Castle, the wooded Chiltern Hills and at Oxford, the beautiful college quadrangles of the university.

The larger and deeper channel of the Hooghly allows for river traffic, including large barges of coal. But it has much less tourist traffic. That's a pity, because there are many places to see.

Earlier this year, I visited Murshidabad and saw an amazing mix of buildings. There were terracotta Jain temples, the Shia Nizamat Imambari and the vast Hazarduari, the palace of a thousand doors.

Then there was the river, which was as serene as at Calcutta, although the ferries were much smaller - wooden boats with bamboo platforms built on top.

Murshidabad isn't the only settlement along the Hooghly that has a great heritage. There are such places as Serampore, the palace at Krishnanagar, or the French settlement at Chandernagore. I look forward to visiting them.

The Hooghly was also a centre for cotton and silk production. In recent years there has been a revival in interest and production of handloom textiles across Bengal. I've learnt about things such as kantha stitching, and the varieties of cottons and silks, including silk from Murshidabad.

This coming week, I am taking part in an event that is a synthesis of these elements - that brings together the textiles, the settlements and the river. This is the Silk River Festival that takes place between Murshidabad and Calcutta from today to December 16.

The concept is simple - to celebrate the settlements along the two rivers and the links between them, and to revive the interest in the history and culture of the two rivers.

Designers from Britain and Bengal worked together to produce large banners representing 10 places along the two rivers. They are painted - appropriately - on large sheets of Murshidabad silk. The designs were drawn by people from the communities of those places.

The banners were paraded in the 10 communities along the Thames earlier this year. They are being paraded in the communities along the Hooghly in a similar celebration. These "heritage walks" attracted thousands in Britain and the banners were even paraded at Trafalgar Square in the centre of London during Diwali.

I look forward to sharing more stories about the places that the banners celebrate, and talking to the artists and designers who worked on the project from Britain and India. The British visitors will be able to see the wonderful architecture of Murshidabad. I hope they will go back and celebrate what they have seen, and encourage more Britons to visit the same marvellous sites.

If you want to see the banners, please come to the Victoria Memorial Hall on Saturday, December 16, where they will be paraded as part of a closing ceremony of the Silk River Festival. More information on the other sites and events of the journey from Murshidabad to Calcutta is available at www.silkriver.co.uk.