Diu

Diu is the beach that Gujarat forgot it had. A small island — barely 38 square kilometres — anchored off the southern tip of the Saurashtra peninsula, it spent more than four centuries as a Portuguese possession and still wears that inheritance openly: a great sea-facing fort, a working Baroque church, cobbled lanes of pastel houses with wooden balconies, and place-names that slide between Portuguese and Gujarati. When India took the enclave in 1961, Diu did not become just another coastal town. It became a Union Territory outpost with a distinctly un-Gujarati character — one where the pace is slow, the sea is always close, and, crucially for many of its visitors, alcohol is legal in a state that is otherwise strictly dry.

That single fact shapes a good deal of Diu's reputation. Because it sits a short bridge-crossing from prohibition Gujarat, it draws a steady weekend traffic of travellers looking to unwind with a cold beer and a plate of fresh fish. But to file Diu away as merely a "drinking destination" is to badly undersell it. This is one of the more atmospheric small towns on the Indian coast — genuinely walkable, low-rise, unhurried, and layered with history that most of India's beach hotspots simply do not have. The forts and churches here are the real thing, not reconstructions, and the light on the whitewashed Portuguese quarter at the end of the day is reason enough to come.

Geographically, Diu is a long, thin limestone island running roughly east–west, connected to the mainland at Ghoghla by a bridge over a narrow tidal creek. The southern shore faces the open Arabian Sea and holds the beaches; the northern side is a sheltered channel dotted with the ruined sea-fort of Panikotha. In between is a compact interior of salt pans, palm groves — including the distinctive branching Hoka palm associated with the island — and small villages, all of it easily covered on a rented scooter in a day. Nothing in Diu is very far from anything else, which is part of its charm: you can see a 16th-century fort, swim at a horseshoe beach, and watch the sun drop into the sea, all before dinner.

The town itself repays slow wandering. Behind the seafront, the old Portuguese neighbourhood is a quiet grid of narrow streets, carved doorways, tiled roofs and the odd crumbling mansion, presided over by St Paul's Church and the fort. There is a small but visible Catholic community, a couple of surviving churches, and a museum housed in a deconsecrated one. It is the closest thing on India's west coast to Goa's colonial texture, but without Goa's scale, crowds or commercialisation — a Goa in miniature, some say, though Diu is quieter, drier in landscape, and far less discovered.

Practically, Diu suits a short, restorative trip rather than a marathon of sightseeing. Two days is enough to cover the headline forts, churches, caves and beaches without hurrying, which is why it works so well as a decompression stop tacked onto a Saurashtra circuit that takes in the Somnath temple and the lions of Gir. Come for the beaches and the beer if you like, but stay for the forts, the sea-cave shrine, the sunset points and the rare pleasure of a coastal town that has never quite been overrun.