GTDC Mayem Lake View Hotel, Goa

You will fall in love with this place. Situated among thickly forested rolling green hills the area is known as Kalevana or Black Forest. Mayem Lake View is an eco-Hotel ideal for lovers, picnickers and just perfect for the scholar, the poet, the artist or the writer who needs solitude in a place of extreme and tranquil beauty. Mayem is off the beaten track and blissful guests swear this is one place they will return to again and again. Our cottages at Mayem Residency are well furnished and comfortable with beautiful vistas outside every window and balcony. The complex comes with a restaurant which serves local as well as continental meals. One can sit by the lake or go for long leisurely boat rides and listen to the birds while drinking in the ambience of this lovely quiet place. The best part of Mayem is the weather. A gentle cool breeze blows throughout the day.

Nearby Mayem

The drive to Mayem is fascinating as each village unfolds, one more beautiful than the other. You pass small neat houses and large gracious sprawling mansions. Time has not changed much here in these villages. The Corjuem Fort is an interesting stop to make. It is a low fort which has a 360 degree view of the surrounding villages. One can see as far as Panjim too. The cable bridge which is 235-metre bridge with its graceful pylon rising 45 metres into the blue sky is lit with floodlights and is already a major tourist attraction. One cannot help but stop, take a deep breath and commit the memory of the view to the deepest recesses of your mind. This view is spectacular, centuries old hills, vales and mangrove lined Mapusa River with the graceful lines of the Corjuem Bridge highlighting the natural beauty of the place.

The fort was actually just a vantage point equipped with strong walls and cannon stations to repulse invaders like Sambhaji. A strong square shape built of laterite steep slope at the four corners rise up to the turrets where the cannons must have been readied to rain shot down on pesky invaders. The fort is said to have been built in 1705 by the Portuguese and a small chapel sits to the right of the entrance itself.

Another must-visit site is the Saptakoteshwar temple at Narve. which is dedicated to Lord Saptakoteshwara, an incarnation of Lord Shiva. There is an interesting story of this particular deity Lord Saptakoteshwar whose fortunes rose and fell with those of Goa. He was deity originally in a temple on Divar Island installed in that temple by the Kadamba kings. After Goa fell to the Sultans the deity was buried and later found and a temple constructed for it on Divar Island. It was moved to its present site after the temple on Divar island was destroyed. Shivaji ordered its renovation at its present site in 1688. The zatra of Saptakoteshwar takes place in April.