Panaji, Goa

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Fontainhas is one of the old and distinctive districts in Panaji, located in a hillside to the east of the old town. It's full of characteristic colonial buildings with overhanging balconies and narrow streets. The area is said to be named after the Fountain of Phoenix spring near the Maruti Temple.

Set in the picturesque area of Fontainhas in Panaji, the Chapel of St Sebastian dates back to 1818 and holds several interesting features. A notable feature of the chapel is the striking crucifix that used to hang in the Palace of the Inquisition in Old Goa.

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The Bishop's palace and is the residence of the Archbishop of Goa. Its construction was begun in 1886 and completed in 1894 and was constructed to reflect the elevation of the Archbishop to a patriarch. It has an impressive coat of arms at its entrance that belongs to Goa's first Patriarch, Dom Antonio Sebastio Valente.

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Boca de Vaca spring is said to contain medicinal properties to which many tourists as well as locals flock here. “Boca De Vaca” is a Portuguese name meaning “Mouth of a Cow”. This name was given by the Portuguese themselves, probably due to the shape in which this structure was built.

This statue is situated near the Secretariat building and features Abbe Faria hypnotising a young woman. He was a famous Goan priest, scientist, revolutionary, and hypnotist who was born in 1756 at Candolim. His parents separated when he was eight years old, his mother became a nun and his father a priest. His father took him to Lisbon in 1777 and it was there that he completed his studies and was subsequently ordained as a priest in Rome. He reportedly collaborated with the conspirators in the failed "Pinto Revolt" in 1787. He then moved to Paris where he gained fame and took part in the French revolution, which was dramatised in Alexander Dumas's novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" as the "Mad monk". He then got interested in hypnotism. His major contribution to the modern science of Hypnotism was his insistence that hypnotic trances were a result of suggestion therapy, and formed the basis of his book "De La cause de Sommeil Lucide" published the day he died in 1819, a pauper. Today, he is considered to be the father of Hypnotism.

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The Azan Maidan (Freedom Park) is located near to the riverside and features a small pavilion, built in 1847, which houses a modern sculpture dedicated to freedom fighter and 'Father of Goan Nationalism' Dr Tristao de Braganza Cunha (1891-1958). It originally held a statue of Afonso de Albuquerque that now stands in the Archaeological Museum in Old Goa. The pavilion itself was built using Corinthian pillars taken from a Dominican church, dating to the mid-16th century.

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These gardens lie just across the busy junction from the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception and are also called Largo da Igreja or Church Square. The Ashokan Pillar in the centre once had a statue of Vasco da Gama on top of it but it now has the triple-lions of India's seal.

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This is the oldest surviving building in Panaji and the oldest colonial building in Goa. It is also known as Idalcao's palace, "Idalcaon" being the Portuguese corrupted word for Adil Shah Khan, the Sultan of Bijapur as the building was built on the site of the Adil Shah palace. The building was initially a fortress and then the palace of the viceroy's of Goa from 1759 to 1918. In 1918, the viceroy moved to Cabo Raj Niwas in Dona Paula. Post liberation, It has housed Goa's Secretariat, legislative assembly and other important government offices.