Panjim or Panaji, whatever you prefer, this place is the capital city of Goa and well connected to other places and has a beautiful coastline from Miramar to Baga. If you are a true traveler, you must explore any place with a mindset of a localite as if you know everything and still want to explore every bit of the place you step. That's how I develop my mindset during vacation. Especially this Goa vacation where I tagged along with my 6 other mallu pals for more than 10 days, I had to game up my travel skills to make them explore Goa through my eyes!
As I planned the trip according to our fashion week, well we all are models who were about to walk for International fashion week Goa 2021, I decided to accommodate ourselves in Panjim in a budgeted hotel and an accessible place to eat, shop, roam, and also stay peaceful among the residents of goa unlike in a typical resort or villa away from the streets of Goa. The residential roads of Goa are so underrated and one must try staying in hotels that pop up in between houses or streets.
Rua means road in Portuguese. Rua de Ourem is a road that is connected to the Ourem creek, which is famous for Portugal's art and culture. We stayed in the place called Hotel 4 Pillars on the end of the road. And I felt it was a good opportunity to go anywhere forward and backward of Panjim. Somehow it is considered as an outskirt road of Panjim extreme by local people but it doesn't look like that at all. On the first day of our trip, we thought of exploring the Panjim first and getting to the other places later so that we would be well aware of the surroundings for the upcoming stay.
As I'm an ardent art lover, I planned to visit Fountainhas after having good lunch and a quick shower. I have hired a 7 seater car from my known contacts and instructed my pals to get freshen up and ready to hit the Panjim roads as soon as possible. Between Rue de Ourem and Fountainhas, we almost drove too many times before leaving goa and we were too habituated to look at the places regularly. Somehow before leaving the place, we felt like one of the local people. I even can say where do we get petrol, cigarettes, and beers, including late-night snacks.
Panjim roads are wider and a person must end up passing through one of the famous churches of Goa in Panjim, which is "Our lady of the immaculate conception church" where you can find a white-colored church with Mary immaculate statue standing among baroque architecture around. We wanted to kick start the trip with some blessings and hence, the church became our first spot to visit even though the entrance was restricted due to Covid Pandemic. But that didn't stop us because we could still see the church and enter till the base of the steps like other travelers who were already hovering over for clicks.
It was super hot and the October Sun in Goa was fiery enough even in the evening. We spent some good time roaming around the church and captured way too many clicks as that was the first day and our vacation spirits were high. After around half-an-hour we left to Fountainhas, speeding our car towards the Latin quarters of Goa. My love for Portuguese architecture is never-ending, especially those mustard yellows and turquoise blues and I even feel the same whenever I visit Pondicherry too.
You must be clear with google maps and the directions if you want to explore every extreme of Fountainhas streets. The entry is free but you must behave properly without disturbing the residents of the place and one must feel honored to explore and you must be cautious about trespassing the private pathways too. Else, you can happily roam around, take pictures without ruining the walls, and explore beautiful cafes, houses, and small shops in between.
But before exploring the whole place, we felt extremely exhausted because of the sun and our visit to the church before. Hence we thought of filling our tummies with food and for me, I was craving for my caffeine dose and needless to say, my only and every time option was "Bombay Coffee Roasters", a cozy place to chill, eat, and hang out in Panjim, indeed in Fountainhas.
Well, I chose the spot and my pals were all ready to get inside. The exteriors and interiors of this coffee house are amazingly appealing. Maybe that's the reason many people come, work and chill for a while. And it's right behind Panjim Inn, one more famous place to stay. This coffee corner is famous for its pastries, coffees, and all kinds of eatables. We rushed into the café and we overwhelmed the counter at once with our orders. The staff was quite welcoming and they made sure we heard all the options on the menu.
We have ordered various kinds of coffees with various recipes to savor over our hot and cold coffees. We went upstairs and got comfortable at our tables. We had some crazy conversations as we were already a gang together, so that kind of aura was quite inescapable, especially with a bunch of models who were obsessed with getting clicked and capturing every moment in Goa. And then our order came and we happily tasted every delicious item placed over our table. The bill was around 1250/- and our tummies were well filled.
We became energetic one more time and stepped outside after exploring the interiors of Bombay Coffee Roasters. Outside there was a tiled wall that gave a Kaleidoscopic view for its visitors. We all captured ourselves in various angles leaning, sitting, and standing against the wall. While my pals were busy taking pictures, I took an escape to witness artistic fountainhas. I kept on roaming and capturing beautiful walls painted in yellows, reds, blues, greens, whites and all the bohemian blended Portuguese and French culture was quite evident in the architecture of every house and office.
I felt extremely good for walking myself all alone under the blue sky with a fresh breeze coming from trees around amidst huge, medium, and tiny houses with equal love on their artistic walls. And when you go with a gang, you can't be alone and at that very moment, I found my pals approaching me. We all explored the streets for a while and we could feel the sunset too. It was already late evening. And as it was getting night, we all wanted to hit a beach and get drunk. I was still not sure where to lead, but I said Candolim as an instant response.
We were a queer model gang of four gays, one transwoman, a straight man with our designer girl heading in one big car to explore Goa according to my plan. The night was still young and we did quite a crazy loads of fun on the first day of our Goan trip! Well, I'm going to share the details in my next blog!
