Your chauffeur meets you at Goa's Dabolim airport (or the new Mopa/Manohar terminal) and transfers you to your North Goa resort, roughly 45 minutes to an hour depending on the beach belt you choose.

After check-in and time to settle, you head out to Baga Beach for the evening, the liveliest stretch on the Calangute to Baga strip, with its shacks, live music and a first taste of Goan seafood as the sun drops into the Arabian Sea.

The morning belongs to the 17th-century Fort Aguada, a Portuguese bastion above the Mandovi estuary with its landmark lighthouse and sweeping views over Sinquerim beach, built to guard against Dutch and Maratha raids.

In the afternoon you move north to the dramatic red-cliff coves of Vagator and Chapora, where the ruined Chapora Fort looks down over the headland. It is an easy day of short hops with plenty of beach time built in.

You drive into Old Goa, the former Portuguese capital and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to see the Basilica of Bom Jesus, which holds the relics of St Francis Xavier, and the vast whitewashed Se Cathedral, once the largest church in Asia.

The route then turns inland to the Shri Mangueshi Temple at Ponda, one of Goa's most revered Hindu shrines, showing the Konkan side of the state that the beaches hide. You continue on to your South Goa hotel for the night.

A full, unhurried day at Palolem, the crescent-shaped palm-fringed bay in South Goa that is calmer and more scenic than the northern beaches, ideal for swimming, kayaking, or a dolphin-spotting boat trip.

In the evening you board a sunset cruise (Palolem backwaters or a Mandovi river cruise, depending on your base) to close the day on the water with the coastline glowing gold.

After breakfast and a final morning by the sea, your chauffeur transfers you to the airport for your onward flight.

If your flight is late, we can arrange a leisurely lunch or a last beach stop, and luggage storage on request, so you use every hour of the day.