Honeymoon and Island Hopping on Mahé, Praslin and La Digue

We landed on Mahé at midday. Creole (the local tour operator) met us at the airport and transferred us to our first accommodation, Bayview, in the south-west of the island.

We received a warm welcome, and as we were honeymooners, we were given a room upgrade and had a magnificent view of the sea. We had sole use of a kitchen and lounge that were intended to be shared by all guests. During our visit in August, none of the islands were particularly busy, which we found very pleasant.

Breakfast was freshly prepared for us (fresh juice, coffee/tea, eggs cooked to order, a fruit platter, pancakes, jam and honey). Hospitality is still taken very, very seriously there. The rooms are furnished to a standard level.
The furniture is not the most up to date, but everything was clean and well maintained. We also had a small fridge. We had only booked breakfast and otherwise catered for ourselves. There are small shops and a takeaway close to the accommodation.

We had booked a car through SeyVillas in advance for the next 2 days. The car was delivered to our accommodation promptly at 10 am, and everything went smoothly (around €80 for both days). We then spent 2 days exploring the entire island by car, stopping wherever we liked and also visiting Victoria.

Mahé, Fairview overlooking Eden Island Victoria is very easy to explore on foot, and all the sights are within easy reach. At lunchtime, we enjoyed a Creole set menu and homemade iced tea at Marie Antoinette. The restaurant is highly recommended, offers good value for money and also has an enclosure where you can see giant tortoises.

Our favourite beaches were Anse Bazarca, Anse Intendance and Port Launay. However, as we discovered, this also depends on the time of year, particularly because of seaweed washing ashore.

Mahé, Anse Bazarca (in the south of Mahé) On the third day, we left our first accommodation and drove our hire car to the ‘Cat Coco’ ferry terminal (around 20–25 minutes’ drive). When booking the hire car, we had selected the ferry terminal as the return location, and this also worked without any problems.

The crossing to Praslin takes around 1 hour and, in August, is very rough due to the wind and heavy swell. Even people who do not usually get seasick may struggle a little.

When we arrived on Praslin, we were once again met by Creole Travel Services and taken to our hotel, Le Duc. We were welcomed with chilled, damp towels and a refreshing drink. Our room was fantastic!

The hotel is very well maintained and situated directly on the beautiful Anse Volbert beach. This side of the island is ideal in August, as hardly any seaweed washes ashore here. The breakfast buffet also left nothing to be desired. Our hotel beach was cleaned regularly. Various shops and restaurants were within a 5-minute walk.

Praslin, Anse Volbert We recommend ‘Ristorante da Luca, Gelateria’ – the pasta and pizza are delicious, and the prices offer good value by Seychelles standards (€10–13 for pizza or pasta). We tried the buffet at the hotel once. However, we would advise against it. It is very expensive for a simple buffet (€52 per person, excluding drinks, plus a 15% service charge, with a bottle of wine costing €30).

There are plenty of lovely places to eat nearby. The ‘Cafe des Art’ bar, for example, is absolutely beautiful. There is also a giant tortoise enclosure opposite. A cocktail costs around €13 there (a typical price for the Seychelles).

We hired bicycles from the hotel to explore the island (€10 per person per day). Our favourite beaches on our tour were Anse Lazio and Anse Kerlan. On another day, we booked the ‘Robinson’ catamaran tour offered by Creole Travel. As expected, the service was excellent. Snorkelling equipment, lunch on board, 2 bottles of water and 1 soft drink per person were included. It was a full-day excursion, and we had plenty of time for snorkelling and sunbathing in a beautiful bay, as well as a guided 1.2 km walk across Curieuse Island, which we thoroughly enjoyed (the excursion cost €125 per person). We would definitely recommend it!

Praslin, 80|Anse Possession After 6 days, it was time to pack our suitcases again and take the ‘Cat Rose’ ferry to La Digue, a journey of around 20 minutes.

On La Digue, the Creole transfer service once again worked as planned, and within a few minutes we had arrived at our accommodation, the Patatran hotel. The hotel is very lovely and a little unusual. We were allocated the ‘Le Mer’ room. We received a bottle of wine and a lovely note as a honeymoon gift. The room was very spacious and clean. The furniture was not particularly modern, but the view from our large balcony was beautiful. Overall, it offered good value for money.

Breakfast was excellent, with fresh fruit, yoghurt, cornflakes, starfruit jam, honey, cakes, juices, milk, water, coffee, toast and baguettes, hot dishes, beans and sausages, cheese and cold meats on request, eggs prepared in every possible way, and pancakes, so there was nothing missing.

La Digue, Hotel Patatran, La Mer room To explore the island, we hired bicycles from the hotel for 3 days (around €20 per person for 3 days). An absolute MUST is the famous picture-postcard beach Anse Source d'Argent, which is located within a nature park (admission around €7 per person). We really enjoyed spending time there. Petite Anse is also a beautiful beach, although it does require a short walk to reach it.

Free Wi-Fi is not common on the island. If internet access is not available at your accommodation, you can purchase access from a machine (make sure you select ‘iSurf’; 1 hour costs around €8).

La Digue, Anse Source d’Argent We can also highly recommend the roadside stalls between the ferry terminal and Hotel Patatran, by Anse Severe. The snacks are excellent and the staff are incredibly friendly, as are virtually all the local people (a large tuna sandwich costs €4). There are lots of roadside vendors selling fresh juice, which is absolutely delicious and refreshing, so you must try it (around €4–5).

On another day, we hiked to the highest point on La Digue. Around 100 vertical metres below the summit, the small road came to an end and we continued uphill along a footpath. After another 15 minutes, we had completed the final part of the climb and were rewarded with panoramic views across La Digue and the surrounding islands and islets. At the ‘Belle Vue’ restaurant, we were able to quench the considerable thirst we had worked up after climbing almost 333 vertical metres.

La Digue, viewpoint just before Belle Vue La Digue has a larger supermarket and plenty of restaurants, so self-catering is no problem here either. The ‘Chez Jules’ restaurant is located at Anse Banane. It is a very pleasant place and the food was delicious, although prices were slightly higher (for example, a sandwich with chips or fruit cost €13).

La Digue, Chez Jules Restaurant We spent a total of 5 nights on La Digue. We then took the ‘Cat Rose’ back to Praslin. After a 1.5-hour wait, we continued to Mahé aboard the ‘Cat Coco’. As on the outbound journey, the crossing was very eventful!

We spent our final two nights on Mahé at the beautiful, first-class Le Meridien Fisherman's Cove hotel. We received an incredibly warm welcome and were given a suite. Both the view and the room were amazing. As a special touch, our room was beautifully decorated and we also received a 45-minute couples’ massage. Breakfast was outstanding and the service was first-class, although for the price, that is probably to be expected!

Mahé, Le Méridien Fisherman’s Cove Hotel Mahé, Le Meridien Fisherman's Cove Hotel We took things easy during our final few days and simply enjoyed being in paradise. There were more sights on our itinerary, but unfortunately our time on Mahé proved a little too short. In hindsight, we would have planned only 3–4 nights on La Digue and spent another 1–2 days on Mahé.

If we had not been on our honeymoon, the charming little guest houses would have been perfectly adequate for us. This also makes it possible to visit paradise ‘fairly affordably’. The Seychelles are certainly worth a visit. The deciding factor for us was the variety on offer and the wealth of activities available, as spending almost 3 weeks simply lying on the same beach would not have been an option for us.

SeyVillas charges a fair amount for the transfer service included in its island-hopping package, but it is worth every penny! Through the tour operator Creole, SeyVillas is very well represented locally. Before our trip, we were able to discuss our questions by telephone with our contact and received some valuable tips.

All in all, it was an incredibly wonderful, varied holiday in paradise, and we would happily book a similar trip again at any time!

I hope we have been able to give everyone a good insight into our experiences.

Best wishes
The Honeymooners :-)

• Bicycle hire: around €7–10 per day
• Bus ticket to any destination: around €0.40
• Creole takeaway meals: around €4
• Creole evening meal: from €40.00
• Pasta/pizza: from €12
• 0.75 litres of water from the supermarket: around €2
• 0.75 litres of wine from the supermarket: from €15
• Small bottle of Seybrew beer: around €2
• Wi-Fi/iSurf: around €8 for 1 full hour, valid for 2 days