Goa

Top things to do in Goa

1. 01

   Basilica of Bom Jesus - see St Francis Xavier's tomb in Old Goa

   history culture arts 👍 Popular

   A plain laterite shell that lost its lime plaster long ago, hiding a gilded baroque interior and the silver casket holding the body of St Francis Xavier above a Florentine marble mausoleum. It is the most visited of the Old Goa churches and the centrepiece of the World Heritage group; the body is brought down for public veneration only once a decade, so most visits mean looking up at the casket from the transept.

2. 02

   Se Cathedral and the Old Goa churches - walk the ruins of the colonial capital

   history culture arts

   The Se Cathedral was built for Portuguese Goa at its height and is still among the largest churches in Asia, with one surviving tower housing the Golden Bell. Around it stand the Church of St Francis of Assisi and its museum, the domed St Cajetan modelled on St Peter's, the small Chapel of St Catherine, and the lone brick tower of St Augustine on Holy Hill - most of what is left of a city abandoned to epidemics.

3. 03

   Fontainhas, Panaji - wander the Latin Quarter's painted lanes

   culture arts history ⭐ Highly recommended

   A grid of narrow lanes below Altinho hill where the houses are repainted in ochre, indigo and green after every monsoon, under overhanging wooden balconies and tiled nameplates, with the wedding-cake Chapel of St Sebastian at its heart. Galleries, tavernas and heritage guesthouses have taken over a fair number of the houses, and it is best walked early in the morning or after dark.

4. 04

   Anjuna Flea Market - haggle across the ground behind the cliffs

   shopping culture arts 👍 Popular

   The market grew out of the overland hippie trail, when long-stayers sold whatever they had carried to fund another season. It now runs to hundreds of stalls of clothes, silver, instruments and Kashmiri and Tibetan traders every Wednesday through the dry months, and it is as much a north Goa ritual as a shopping trip.

5. 05

   Fort Aguada - the Portuguese sea fort above Sinquerim

   history scenic

   A bastioned fort finished early in the seventeenth century to keep the Dutch and the Marathas out of the Mandovi, with an enormous freshwater cistern in its belly that watered passing ships and a squat four-storey lighthouse on top. The ramparts give the standard view down the whole Candolim and Calangute sweep, and the old Aguada jail sits below it on the river side.

6. 06

   Chapora Fort - red laterite ramparts over the Vagator headland

   history scenic

   Little survives inside beyond the walls, but the climb up from Chapora village puts you above the river mouth with Vagator's beaches on one side and the fishing boats on the other, and it is the north's default sunset gathering. Indian visitors know it mainly from a Bollywood road movie shot on the ramparts, which is why the crowd skews young and domestic.

7. 07

   Palolem Beach - the crescent bay, its kayaks and its silent discos

   scenic nightlife music ⭐ Highly recommended

   A near-perfect palm-backed arc between two headlands in the far south, shallow enough to swim and calm enough that kayaks and outriggers run around the point to Butterfly Beach and out to the islet at the north end. Amplified music is not permitted late, so the beach parties here run on headphones - genuinely odd to watch, and one of the few things Goa does nowhere else.

8. 08

   Dudhsagar Falls - the four-tier fall on the Karnataka border

   nature wildlife scenic 👍 Popular

   The Mandovi drops in four stages down a rainforest face inside Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary, with the Konkan railway crossing the foot of it on a stone viaduct. Access is by booked jeep through the reserve from Kulem rather than private car, and the forest road is closed while the rains are on - the fall is at its fullest just as it reopens.

9. 09

   Fish curry rice - eat your way through the Goan and Portuguese menus

   food

   The everyday plate is rice with a coconut and kokum fish curry and a fried mackerel alongside. The Portuguese half of the repertoire gives you vindaloo (properly a vinegar-and-garlic pork dish, not a heat contest), sorpotel, chicken cafreal, and recheado fish split and packed with red masala. Finish with bebinca, a layered egg-and-coconut pudding, and drink the cashew or coconut feni distilled here and almost nowhere else.

10. 10

    Braganza House, Chandor - inside a Portuguese-era manor still in the family

    history culture arts

    An eighteenth-century house whose facade runs most of one side of the village square, split down the middle between two branches of the same family and still lived in by their descendants. The ballroom, the rosewood furniture, the Chinese porcelain and the private chapel are shown by the owners themselves, and Loutolim nearby has two more houses open on the same terms.

11. 11

    Arambol - the drum circle, the sweet-water lake and the cliff paragliders

    nightlife music wellness

    The far north's long-stay village, where a walk around the headland reaches a freshwater lake behind the sand and a banyan tree that has drawn the alternative crowd for decades. Drummers gather on the beach at sunset, paragliders launch off the cliffs when the wind sits right, and the noticeboards are thick with yoga, music and healing of every description.

12. 12

    Mandovi River - sunset cruises and the offshore casinos

    nightlife music scenic

    Goa is one of very few Indian states where casino gambling is legal, and the big rooms are floating: converted vessels moored midstream off Panaji and reached by tender from the promenade. The same waterfront runs hour-long sunset cruises with live music and dancing, a completely different crowd and a good way to see the old capital from the water.

13. 13

    Shri Mangueshi Temple, Ponda - the Goan temple style and its lamp tower

    history culture arts

    When the Portuguese demolished the temples of the coastal districts, the deities were carried inland to Ponda, and the temples rebuilt there evolved a hybrid style you see nowhere else: white octagonal domes, European balustrades and pilasters, and a tall tiered deepstambha lamp tower in the courtyard. Mangueshi is the best known, with Shanta Durga and Mahalasa close by and quieter.

14. 14

    Divar Island - the ferry-only island in the middle of the river

    off beaten path scenic

    A flat green island of paddy, chapels and old houses reached by a free flat-bottomed ferry from Old Goa or Ribandar, with almost no traffic and a hilltop church at Piedade looking back across the water. It is the usual answer to what north Goa felt like before the tourism, and it rewards a scooter and no particular plan.

15. 15

    Galgibaga and Agonda - the olive ridley turtle nesting beaches

    nature wildlife off beaten path

    Two of the state's protected nesting beaches, where olive ridley turtles come ashore through the cool dry months and the forest department fences and watches the clutches. Galgibaga in the far south is the quieter of the pair and has kept its casuarina fringe and its ban on the shack strip that defines most of the coast.

Getting to & around Goa

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