When we travelled back in time, quite literally!

Serendipity: (n.) a fruitful accident; the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Though this word occupied quite some space in our limited vocab, we didn’t really know how serendipity feels like! But then, we encountered Casa Menezes-a heritage Goan home stay in the beautiful village of Batim, North Goa. In pure sense of the word, it was a fruitful accidents neither any of the many travel portals nor any local guide helped us to reach there.

As claimed by the owner, the house is more than 400 years old, historically speaking, almost as old as the Taj Mahal.  It was only two and half years back that David, with the help of hismother Pamela Menezes (a former deputy director of Goa Tourism), chose to convert this 12 room villa to a home stay, of course, after an extensive brainstorming. “It got very taxing for us to maintain it. We thought if a house could sustain itself on its own there is nothing like it” adds David.Stepping into history, we further started heading towards our room and what we saw next was indeed jaw dropping. Our rooms were perfectly juxtaposed with an art gallery. Let this just sink in for a while! While most of the paintings were drawn by local artists reflecting hippie the Goan culture, some of them were brought straight from Guwahati. “We do art exhibitions and displays.

Casa Menezes is located 8 Km off Panjim towards South Goa. The area once belonged to the Goan Kadamba Dynasty with Chandor being its capital. The house also had a face rift over the period of time. A part of the flooring which you see there was imported from Spain in the 1850. Even the crockeries that are kept in the Villa till date were imported from China some 200 years, informs David. Goa was an important centre for trade and has also witnessed slave trade which prevailed back then. Illegal slave trade existed in Goa in the and 1850. It was a sight to spot an antique wooden palkee (palanquin) that dated back to the Portuguese era.

Right opposite to the house, was a restaurant and bar owned by the Menezes, which serves authentic Goan food. When in Goa, do what Goans do; thankfully, the Villa also houses a few well maintained bicycles. So all you have to do is to just pick one and start your relaxing ride into the serene village of Batim. Next morning, we cycled our way to the village witnessing the stunning old houses painted in different bright colours. We also saw the well-built Batim Church and the clean village lake. This village lake attracts a lot of migratory birds and hence makes the area a bird watcher’s paradise. Wait a minute, did we tell you about the pool? Tariff: Starts at 5000 INR per night inclusive of taxes and a sumptuous Goan Breakfast at the restaurant.

Contact us for more details 🙂