Calangute is the most famous beach of Goa, also situated in North Goa district. Initially we booked a hotel to spend the last few days of our holiday there but after reading a lot of negative reviews about it, we cancelled the hotel and we booked a new one in Palolem, South Goa. And thank god for that! It's the most horrible beach we have seen, we felt uncomfortable right away when we walked onto it. I have never seen so many people on a beach and there is litter on the sand. When Fausto was watching our property, I went to swim and an Indian man was following and harassing me. Some Indian boys shouted "welcome to India".
We also saw many beggars in Calangute, for example two little boys, maybe 3 and 4 years old and we couldn’t get rid of them. When a leg of the younger one got trapped in a deep hole in the pavement, he wanted to cry but then he realised that it would not help at all, so he just tried to pull the leg out. When he eventually pulled it out, there were big scratches on the leg. It must have hurt a lot but there was nobody to put a plaster on his leg.
We stayed on the beach for "experience" for two hours and then we left knowing that we will never set foot in Calangute again.

To get from Betalbatim to Calangute one can travel by taxi (we were quoted £40 for a whole day transport) or one can take local buses which did cost about 5 pounds for both of us. It obviously takes longer but it's a good experience of how people live in this part of India. And the local people we met were really friendly and helpful, well, apart from Calangute.
Our 1-day trip looked like this:

Betalbatim - Madgaon (called also Margao) - Penjim - Old Goa (2 hours)

Old Goa - Penjim - Calangute (1 hour)

Calangute - Penjim - Madgaon - Betalbatim (2 hours)

On the way back we met three really nice Indian guys and we shared a taxi from Penjim to Madgaon, because in the Penjim station there were so many people that we would have to wait many hours to get on one of the overcrowded buses.
In general we had a great day out, we saw with our own eyes that Calangute is not our cup of tea, we visited the historic Old Goa, we met some really nice people and finally… we had an excellent Indian dinner in Madgaon before we returned to Betalbatim (paneer makhani, tandoori roti and garlic naan).
In the pictures: changing buses in Penjim bus station, entrance to the Calangute beach and on the beach itself.