Goa

Four hundred and fifty years of Portugal in South Asia

Goa was a Portuguese territory from 1510 to 1961 — longer than the British occupation of any part of India. That 450-year presence left a culture that exists nowhere else: Indo-Portuguese architecture, a fusion cuisine distinct from all other Indian cooking, Catholic churches of extraordinary quality, and a social fabric still visibly shaped by that encounter.

The Goa we explore has nothing to do with beaches. Old Goa was once the largest city in Asia after Lisbon. The Basilica of Bom Jesus holds the body of St Francis Xavier. The Latin Quarter of Fontainhas is an intact 19th-century Portuguese neighbourhood. Divar Island is a village where time stopped in the 1950s.

This is only one half of Goa's story. Inland, in the Ponda temple belt, a distinct Hindu temple tradition survived the Portuguese period — some by relocation, some by quiet continuity. The Shri Mangeshi Temple, with its distinctive seven-tiered white deepastambha (lamp tower), is among the most visited of these, alongside the Shantadurga and Mahalasa temples nearby.