Bandra Fort

This guide to Bandra Fort in Mumbai starts with the freshwater spring that once let Portuguese ships anchor below it to refill their water barrels, giving the fort its original name, Castella de Aguada, Fort of the Waterpoint. Built in 1640 to guard the sea route into what became Bombay, it changed hands as European politics shifted: in 1661 Portugal ceded the nearby islands of Bombay to England through a royal marriage deal, leaving two rival powers facing each other across Mahim Bay. When Maratha armies pushed toward the coast in the early 1700s, the British had to decide whether the fort still standing worked for them or against them. At its peak the fort carried seven cannons trained on the same stretch of sea you can see from here.