Honeymooning in the Seychelles – with a difference

We started our journey in Hamburg. The flight with Emirates, via Dubai, was extremely pleasant, and thanks to the stopover, neither leg felt particularly long. When we arrived on Mahé, the local tour operator, Creole Travels, directed us straight to our transfer to Praslin. We can say straight away that all our transfers went smoothly.

We then took the ferry to Praslin, followed by a bus from the harbour to our accommodation, Acquario Villa. It is a very pleasant, small and exceptionally clean guesthouse. The staff are extremely friendly and explain how to get to all the places you have chosen to visit. We went everywhere either on foot or by bus.

We spent our first day relaxing and found a pleasant, peaceful spot on Anse Volbert (Cote d'Or). More by chance than anything else, as there was quite a lot of dried seaweed on the beach at the time, we found a place quite far to the north. From the beach, you could walk around 30–40 m out into water that did not even reach your waist. The water seemed very clear to us, and we saw lots of small rays there.

On our second day, we took a day trip to La Digue, a truly wonderful island. We cycled to Anse Source d'Argent – simply leave your bicycle at the beach bar and walk the final few metres. Naturally, plenty of people want to see this beach, so it was very busy when we visited. That aside, it is deservedly one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, even though we have not seen any of the others on those lists (image 1). The water is crystal clear, and you can see countless fish in the waist-deep water even without a snorkelling mask. The granite boulders are fantastic.

Anse Source d'Argent We spent another day at the Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve. There is an admission fee, but it is certainly worthwhile. Then came our highlight on Praslin: Anse Lazio. It is an absolutely incredible beach with everything you could wish for: wonderful sand, clear water and superb snorkelling. From the bus stop, there is still a paved walk of around 1.5 km, but it is not particularly difficult – it is not a trail or anything similar. We simply had to visit this place twice.

After our wonderful time on Praslin, we returned to the main island of Mahé for our second week. Choice Villa is considerably larger than our first accommodation, but it is also very clean and has friendly staff who always asked about our plans and what we had done the previous day over breakfast.

The capital, Victoria, really is a little gem. It has a lovely town centre and plenty of smaller statues and symbols representing aspects of the country.

Mahé landmark The botanical garden is worth a visit if that sort of thing interests you. We spent one day touring the entire island with a taxi driver. It was certainly a little more expensive than hiring a car, but firstly, we did not have to deal with the stress of driving in traffic for the day, and secondly, there were undoubtedly a few smaller details we would otherwise have missed. He stopped to cut off some tree bark or a piece of ordinary-looking grass: one immediately smelled like Christmas – cinnamon – while the other had an incredibly intense lemon scent – lemongrass.

Our highlight on Mahé was the hike to Anse Major. It is a fantastic, signposted route that is not too easy but not too long either, at around 5 km, and leads to a truly beautiful beach.

View from the hiking trail Not too many people had chosen this destination when we visited. It was wonderful for snorkelling, with clear water and yet more species of fish that we had not seen on Praslin.

Photo taken while snorkelling at Anse Major As we were staying by Beau Vallon, another highlight was the takeaway food from the small stalls along the beach. It was excellent and quite inexpensive.

As the title suggests, ours was a rather different kind of honeymoon, away from simply lying on the beach and staying all-inclusive. The destination itself and all the activities were our luxury. Based on our experience, the only thing we would have done differently was to divide our time differently and add a few more days on La Digue.