Goa

Goa is the smallest state in India and the one with the most distinct cultural identity — shaped by 450 years of Portuguese colonial administration, a period longer than the United States has existed, and visible in every aspect from the architecture to the kitchen to the family names.

The Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contains the mortal remains of Francis Xavier — a Jesuit missionary who died in 1552 and whose body, expected to decompose, did not. The building around him — Baroque in the Portuguese colonial tradition — is one of the finest pieces of European religious architecture in Asia, and the lane of religious institutions around it forms a complex whose historical density is unlike anything else on the Indian coast.

The food of Goa is the most immediate way to understand its cultural complexity. The Goan Catholic kitchen — pork vindaloo made with coconut vinegar, balchão of prawn fermented with Kashmiri chillies, sorpotel with its internal organs in a sour spice reduction — is nothing like the vindaloo of British Indian restaurants and everything like a cuisine developed by a specific community in a specific place over four centuries. Eating through Goa's regional and community food traditions requires weeks rather than days.

Places to Visit in Goa

• Baga Beach
• Old Goa Churches
• Fort Aguada
• Anjuna Flea Market
• Palolem Beach

Things to Do in Goa

• Beach hopping
• Portuguese church architecture tour
• Sunset cruise on the Mandovi
• Seafood shack dining