Goa Holiday - Part II

So it was Day 2 at Goa, and I found to my surprise that most things we wanted to see were faaar away! Yes my research wasn't perfect it seems, I had looked for places to see, but left the google maps part for later so that was a bit of a bummer. We were in the Club Mahindra Varca Beach resort which is nearly as south as it goes in Goa, and a lot of the sightseeing and beaches were in North Goa.





We set out with Apple maps for support (not much help!) but finally managed to be on our way to the Basilica of Bom Jesus that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Very picturesque and lovely architecture, it is also famous as it holds the remains of St. Francis Xavier.

Candles lit with wishes and prayers and thanksgiving













The lovely view of the outside of the basilica

Lunch was at a restaurant called O Coqueiro which is famous as the place the notorious Charles Sobhraj used to frequent and got arrested at! We tried a couple of Goan specialties, but it was the kid's sizzler that was the best of the lot :)!












Fascinated by the ceiling fixtures once more ;)

Next stop was the Fort Aguada, of Dil Chahta Hai fame, which was every bit as picturesque as I remembered. Going up the steep (though short flight of) steps reminded me of how much I needed exercise, but the view after climbing was totally worth it!

We quickly touched upon a couple of North Goa beaches as I was getting very doubtful of heading back in that direction in the next couple of days. The first was Anjuna, which was a rocky beach (unless we missed some part of it). We missed the famous Anjuna flea market though I had been looking forward to it, as when I was browsing around I found that it was only on Wednesday evenings (and to expect to drive that additional 40+ kms when we had just arrived in Goa was definitely overkill). D was not happy with the climbing over rocks bit, and complaining about "why we had to go to a rocky beach, why not a normal beach?!" :).

And then she was happy to reach Calangute! Picturesque all right, though quite crowded as expected in holiday season.

And that was the end of a long Day 2 :).