"G for Goa Travelogue - Day 1"

Goa is a state in India famous for its beaches, churches, portugal forts, freedom in air, happening pubs, casinos, high spirits and other spirits at reasonable prices ;-). Goa is the poor man's Las Vegas. I visited Goa in June 2016 and the travelogue has been pending since then. Myself, Imran and my brother planned to go Goa as we had a long  weekend. We boarded a morning flight in Hyderabad and reached Goa roughly in one and half hour. As and when I entered Goa I could feel the sultry atmosphere and started sweating bad. We reached around lunch time and checked in to our beautiful Estrela Do Mar resorts near the Calangute  beach. The name felt fancy to me. Estrela Do Mar is a portugal / Spanish word which means star fish as per google. Humidity was severe, june being the rainy season and as almost half day was over, we were not sure of where to go.

Resorts- Pathway to room. The beautiful night view

After having a delicious lunch at resort which included fried prawns, spicy chicken noodles and quenching my thirst with sweet  baadam milk (YES I dont consume alcohol :) ), we hired  a cab and started off to Agauda fort as per the cab driver Yogi's suggestion. Fort Agauda is a 17th century portugal fort which has a light house as well.  This fort is built as a guard by Portugese on the Sinquerim beach. After roaming around the fort at around 4:30 PM in the evening , it started getting very dark and cloudy. I loved the view from there and as it is closed for tourists after 5, I quickly clicked some information written near the light house to read later! I only opened it now to read.  :-P

Walking towards Agauda

About Goa forts

Agauda fort and light house

It started drizzling by the time we were leaving the fort. We stopped on our way back to resort at the Sinquerim fort . This felt the most scenic and dramatic spot to me with fort leading in to the beach and windows in the fort through which you can look at the endless sea. This spot is behind Taj Vivanta and attracts huge crowds due to its nearness to the sea. Huge waves crash across the walls of the fort and totally drench you if you stand near by. It was fun to watch everyone trying to drench themselves and freeze those moments in videos and pictures. The below picture is my favorite. I can stand there gazing at the sea for hours.

The beautiful Sinquerim fort

Sinquerim beach in the evening

We called it a day after spending a long time at the fort and came back to our resort. The housekeeping staff gave a pleasant surprise by arranging the towels in the shape of swans in our bed room which gave us quite a honey-mooney feel ;). After freshening up we went to Calangute beach. The resort practically opens up in to beach. It felt amazing to just walk on the resort pathway and realize that  the beach is in the backyard of the resorts. The day was quite refreshing and we retired finally after a long night stroll on the beach sand...

our room after beautiful arrangement of swans ;)

This is my day 7 post for A to Z Challenge 2017 #atozchallenge .Would be continuing the travelogue during the challenge or some other time.