Goa

Date arrived: 19th December 2023

Date Departed: 27th December 2023 

Favourite sight: Agonda Beach

Average Cost: £32.73 PPPD (not including Hotels.com voucher, which would add £10PPPD)

Goa didn't feature in our plans until we heard somebody mention it in Ahmedabad, on our second day in India. "Ooh, how about some time on the beach in Goa for Christmas?" we said - and so it came to pass! This was an excellent idea, and unbelievably while we were there we bumped into the same people who suggested it to us in Ahmedabad, 8 weeks earlier. freaky...

Unlike other destinations, I'm not going to do a day-by-day breakdown our stay at Palolem Beach in Goa . This is mainly because the 8 days we spent there were pretty consistent, so recounting each day adds nothing. We had a glorious week enjoying our 'break-from-the-break' and doing the sort of things you do in a beach resort. Let me summarise in a few topics.

The Beaches

We'd decided that Southern Goa was the place for us due to the more chilled atmosphere and the absence of a real 'party scene', and in particular Palolem seemed to have the right combination of things to do with relaxing times and great beaches. This was a good call. Palolem beach (below - top left) itself was stunning - 1.6KM of soft golden sand, gently curving between headlands to form a calm bay, perfect for swimming and kayaking, and overflown by soaring sea eagles.

We also visited Patnem beach (bottom left), directly to the South, which was quieter and shorter than Palolem, and a nice change for a brief visit. Then there was Agonda beach (main pic) - a few KM to the north of Palolem, and to my mind the best beach I've ever visited. Agonda stretches for over 2.5KM, and is about twice the width of Palolem, with fewer visitors, and also fewer restaurants and hotels. It was undeniably magnificent, however, I believe a little more expensive to stay at than Palolem.

The Food

Palolem has sprung up into quite a good sized resort now, and has a myriad of eateries to choose from, ranging from simple beach shacks and omelette stands, to organic health food specialists, and even a couple of big resorts with mutiple restaurants at the end of the beach.  We ate at numerous places and didn't have a bad meal. On our first evening we stopped at a beach front bar/restaurant for a beer, and ended up eating there out of pure lethargy - but the food was excellent, so we returned several times, though mainly for breakfast (they had real bacon!) Favourites that we found were:

Nireas - Healthy Haven With a proper coffee machine, home made hummous, and delicious brown bread, we returned a few times here to enjoy breakfast, lunch or just a proper latte.

The Art Resort This little hotel and beach front restaurant boasts a great menu of fresh food, decent coffee (though not as good as Nireas) and really nice bread, including a delicious six-seeded sour dough. They host a couple of resident artists who give painting and drawing classes, but also cover the walls in therr paintings, which are all for sale. We ended up buying a couple of pieces from here, which are (hopefully) being shipped directly back to blighty...

Royal Italy was a small and simple looking restaurant 100 yards from our accommodation, but served a variety of really good food, including a half decent pizza, and excellent fish thali. We had a memorable evening here when we bumped into the aforementioned British couple we'd met previously in Ahmedabad, who introduced us to friends of theirs, and we all enjoyed a couple of drinks.

Ciarans was a recommendation from another couple of Brits we met on the beach, and we enjoyed two excellent meals there, including our Christmas day feast of Roast Turkey for me and Roast Port for Julie. We had to splash out a little for this, but it was £50 well spent, and included a glass of half decent wine  and some really good live music. As well as the traditional Christmas fayre, the fish we ate there separately was truly excellent, and may now be my #1 Prawn dish ever.

The Drink

Whilst the food here was really good, and really good value, we'd got used to struggling to find beer (Gujarat is a dry state) or having to pay pretty much UK prices, e.g. £3-4 for a 330ml Kingfisher. That same bottle was a consistent 100 Rupees here in Goa, which is about 95pence. The big 660 bottles were sometimes even better value at 180 Rupees! We did enjoy a couple of evenings just sat in a beach front bar enjoying a beer as the sun went down :-) There was even some half decent local wine available, which we tried a few times.

Ativities

Whilst the heat was impressive, in the low-mid 30s every day, there was still plenty we could do. We swam in the sea a couple of times, went kayaking up and down the bay, and attended three really good yoga sessions overlooking the beach. We even did a cooking class on Christmas Eve, and are bringing a stack of recipes home with us to try for ourselves back in the UK.

I have to admit I really enjoyed stretching out at a Yoga class listening to the sound of the ocean and watching the sun slide gently over the horizon!

The sunsets

I do love a good sunset, and the combination of a west-facing beach and (dare I say it?) a little bit of atmospheric pollution made for some spectacular sunsets. I think I took about 50 photos of the sun going down, but here are a few completely unedited examples, just to give the general idea!

In summary, I think it's safe to say we both loved our long week  in Goa, to the extent that we would even consider coming back as a standlone trip - perhaps with a few days in Mumbai tacked on. If you get a chance to visit, you should take it - it's fabulous.