Fort Tiracol — officially the Fortaleza da Santíssima Trindade — sits on a low headland at the very northern tip of Goa, looking down the wide Tiracol estuary out to the Arabian Sea. It is small as Portuguese forts go: a single ring of red laterite ramparts with bastions at the corners, a parade ground, a few cells, and the white-painted St Anthony's Church sitting like a wedding cake in the middle of it all. The whole circuit can be walked in twenty minutes, but the headland views are some of the best on the Goan coast and easily justify a much longer stay.
The interior of the fort is now run as a small heritage hotel, but the church and the ramparts are freely accessible to day visitors during daylight hours. The white walls of St Anthony's against the red laterite of the fort and the blue of the river below make for one of the iconic photographs of the area — best at first light, when the haze burns off the estuary.