Page 510 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - India

508  SOUTHWESTERN INDIA

hill, the building has a Rachol Seminary also housed the
grand fort-like façade, renowned Museum of Christian
flanked by imposing Art, established in 1991 by the
watch towers. The Indian National Trust for Art and
seminary’s vast entrance Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and
hall is covered with the Gulbenkian Foundation of
impressive murals and Portugal. The entire collection
opens on to a central has been relocated to the
courtyard, surrounded Convent of St Monica in Old Goa
by cloistered rooms made (see p500), and has been set up
of solid teak, each one in the Chapel of the Weeping
with an adjoining wood- Cross, adjacent to the convent.
panelled study. The grand Its impressive collection of
staircase is adorned 17th- and 18th-century religious
with Hindu sculptures, objects includes silver and ivory
excavated from the ancient ornaments, ornate clerical robes,
Hindu temple on the site processional crosses and holy
of which the seminary water sprinklers. Particularly
was constructed. This charming is a portable altar for
leads to the first floor travelling missionaries, with
Altar, Church of St Ignatius Loyola, Rachol and the library, which has candle stands and a mass kit.
a rare collection of Latin
r Rachol and Portuguese books, and
portraits of Goa’s archbishops. t Margao
South Goa district (Salcete taluka). Attached to the seminary
52 km (32 miles) SE of Panaji. @ South Goa district (Salcete taluka).
is the Church of St Ignatius 33 km (21 miles) SE of Panaji.
The small hamlet of Rachol Loyola, dedicated to the * 87,700. £ @ n Margao
occupies the site of an old eponymous saint. It has an Residency, (0832) 271 5528.
fortress built by the Bijapur ornately carved-and-gilded _ Feast of the Holy Spirit (May).
sultans (see p546) and ceded altar with a painting of
to the Por tuguese in 1520. St Constantine, the first Margao (Madgaon), Goa’s
A laterite archway and a Roman emperor to convert second most important city
dry moat are the only to Christianity. According after Panaji, is the admin istrative
remnants of the bastion – to legend, a few bone and commercial capital of the
once fortified with fragments and a vial of South Goa district. This bustling
100 cannons – that used his blood were brought town also serves as the area’s
to guard the southern to Rachol in 1782, and are main trading centre for local
borders of the Portuguese supposedly enshrined near fish and farm produce.
territories. The pretty Church the entrance. The choir stall The town square, Praça
of Nossa Senhora das has delicate murals of the Jorge Barreto, has the large,
Neves (Our Lady of the founding saints of various colonial Municipal Building,
Snows), in the village, religious orders. On which houses the library on its
was built in 1576. Silver the first floor balcony southern side, and a pop ular
Today, Rachol reliquary is a beautiful 16th- café called Longinhos nearby.
Seminary, built in century pipe-organ Just behind the Municipal
1606, is probably the most from Lisbon. Until mid-2001, Building, to the south, are
important of Goa’s seminaries.
First established in Margao in
1574, and known as the College
of All Saints, the earlier seminary
included a hospital, a school for
the poor and a printing press.
It was relocated here after the
Margao institution was des troyed
in a Muslim raid in 1579. For
generations, this was Goa’s
most prestigious educational
institution, both for secular
and religious studies, offering
a seven-year course in theology
and phi losophy, to prepare
young seminarians for the
priesthood. Spectacularly
located on the summit of a Hilltop Seminary and Church at Rachol
For hotels and restaurants in this region see p701 and pp715–16

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Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
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Date 12th July 2013
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