जगहें

Iranshah Atash Behram, Udvadaतीर्थValsad

The oldest continuously burning consecrated fire of the Indian Zoroastrian community. By the traditional account the fire was established at Sanjan, hidden in the Bahrot caves for twelve years during an invasion, kept at Vansda for fourteen, held at Navsari for over three centuries, moved briefly to Valsad and installed at Udvada in 1742. Non-Zoroastrians are not admitted to the fire chamber; the village around it, a single street of wooden-balconied houses, is open to everyone.

सबसे अच्छा समय: October–March.

SanjanविरासतValsad

The traditional landing place of the first Zoroastrian refugees from Iran, marked by a twentieth-century memorial column. The account of the landing, the Qissa-i-Sanjan, was written at Navsari in 1599 — several centuries after the events it narrates — which is why its dates are disputed and why the story of sugar stirred into milk is best read as a community's account of itself rather than as a record.

NavsariविरासतNavsari

The Parsi priestly centre of the region — seat of the Bhagarsath anjuman, home to one of India's eight Atash Behrams, and to the First Dastur Meherjirana Library, founded in 1872, which holds one of the largest collections of Zoroastrian manuscripts anywhere. The Tata family's ancestral house stands in the same quarter, and Dadabhai Naoroji was born a few streets away.

Surat Castle and the old cityविरासतSurat

A sixteenth-century riverside fort on the Tapi, restored in recent years, standing at what was the busiest port in Mughal India and the embarkation point for the Hajj. The English, Dutch, French and Portuguese all kept factories here; the Dutch and Armenian cemeteries survive on the city's edge, the Dutch one dominated by a mausoleum far larger than anything the living men built.

RanderविरासतSurat

The trading town on the north bank of the Tapi that was a port before Surat was, later settled by Sunni Vohra merchant families whose houses carry carved timber interiors and imported tilework brought back from the East African and Burmese trade.

DandiविरासतNavsari

The tidal flat where the 1930 salt march ended and salt was lifted from the pans in defiance of the salt law. The National Salt Satyagraha Memorial opened on the site in 2019.

BardoliविरासतSurat

A taluka town whose 1928 no-tax campaign against a land revenue increase gave Vallabhbhai Patel the title Sardar. The Swaraj Ashram there keeps the campaign's records.

Saputaraपहाड़Dang

Gujarat's only hill station, on the Sahyadri crest at about 1,000 m, built around a small lake. The name is usually glossed as the abode of serpents, after a snake shrine on the Sarpaganga below. It is at its most characteristic in the monsoon, when the escarpment is in cloud and the falls are running, and at its least in April.

सबसे अच्छा समय: July–October.

Vansda National Parkप्रकृतिNavsari

A small block of moist deciduous forest on the Ambika that was never commercially logged, holding teak, bamboo, giant squirrel and a heavy bird list. It is one of the few places to see what the whole slope looked like before the timber contracts.

सबसे अच्छा समय: November–March, and the monsoon for the forest itself.

Purna Wildlife Sanctuary and the Dangs fallsप्रकृतिDang

The state's largest standing bamboo stock, on the Purna and its tributaries. Gira falls near Waghai and Girmal falls further in run hard from July to October and are close to dry by March; Girmal is generally described as the highest fall in the state.

सबसे अच्छा समय: July–October.

Moti Daman and Nani DamanविरासतDaman

Two walled settlements on either side of the Damanganga, Portuguese from 1559 until 1961. Moti Daman holds the larger fort, the Bom Jesus church with its carved and gilded interior, and a street plan that is Portuguese rather than Gujarati; Nani Daman has the fishing harbour and the boat yards.

सबसे अच्छा समय: October–March.

Silvassa and Dudhniप्रकृतिDadra and Nagar Haveli

A Warli-majority enclave held by Portugal until 1954, wedged between two states and belonging culturally to neither. Dudhni on the Damanganga backwater and the tribal museum at Silvassa are the two things most visitors see; the Warli hamlets around them are the reason the enclave matters here.

Tithal and Dumasसमुद्र तटValsad, Surat

Two dark-sand beaches — the colour comes from the sediment the rivers bring off the basalt slope, not from anything the water is doing. Tithal has temples along the shore and a long evening crowd; Dumas is Surat's weekend beach and the closest one to the city.

Surat Diamond Bourse, KhajodशहरीSurat

A trading complex opened at the end of 2023 on the city's southern edge, built to bring diamond trading from Mumbai to the city that does the cutting, and reported to be the largest office building in the world by floor area. It is worth seeing as the physical form of a trade that until then had operated from thousands of small workshops.

Wilson Hills, Dharampurपहाड़Valsad

A hilltop above Dharampur at the northern end of the same escarpment as Saputara, with a view over the Par valley and, on a clear evening, to the sea.

सबसे अच्छा समय: August–February.