Murud-Janjira Fort

The most impressive fort on the Konkan coast sits on a basalt rock island about half a kilometre offshore from the village of Murud, roughly 55 km south of Alibag. Janjira is massive — its walls rise 20 metres above the sea and once enclosed 22 bastions, a freshwater lake, and the palace and mosque of the Siddis, the Abyssinian Muslim rulers who held the fort from the 17th century.

Small wooden boats from Rajapuri jetty (a short auto-rickshaw ride from Murud) ferry visitors out to the fort in groups. The crossing takes about 10 minutes. Inside, the rooms and buildings are mostly ruined but the scale is extraordinary, and the view from the sea-facing bastions — water on all sides, no land in sight — makes clear why the fort was considered impregnable. Allow a full morning or afternoon for the visit.

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A story
Janjira is the only Maratha coastal fort that was never captured — not by the Mughals, not by the British, not by the Portuguese, not by Kanhoji Angre himself, who besieged it repeatedly and failed every time. Its name is a corruption of the Arabic "Jazira," meaning island, and its Siddi rulers — East African Muslims who had served the Mughals — held it for over 300 years.