Seychelles Island Feeling

Beau Vallon is undoubtedly the main beach for tourists in the north of Mahé. Besides the gorgeous beach itself, there are water sports, all sorts of restaurants and shops. For us, it was ideal for the first few days.

With a hire car, you can also explore the south of the island over a few days. More picture-perfect beaches await sun-seeking visitors who, like us, want to escape the German winter. Anse Intendance and Petite Anse are our favourites in the south. Both are secluded bays with white sand and turquoise water, and you can have them almost entirely to yourself.

After spending the first few days relaxing, diving at Beau Vallon and enjoying delicious Creole food in the local restaurants, we continued to La Digue for a ‘holiday from the holiday’.

The third-largest island is easy to reach by ferry from Victoria in around 1.5 hours. An even quicker option is to fly to Praslin, take a taxi across the island and then make the short ferry crossing from Praslin to La Digue. Through SeyVillas, we found beautiful accommodation directly on Anse Severe that met our requirements perfectly: small but lovely, and in an excellent location.

On La Digue, Seychellois residents and tourists alike get around by bicycle. Bikes can usually be hired directly from your accommodation, or from one of the many hire shops, for a small daily fee. On the first day, the island’s small road took us over the ‘mountain’ to the south-eastern side of the island and on to Grand Anse and Petite Anse – two beaches that look as though they have come straight out of a television advert.

On the second day, we visited the absolute highlight of La Digue: Anse Source d’Argent.

You should definitely arrive early in the morning, when you can have the beach entirely to yourself. Before the beach entrance lies Union Estate, an attractively landscaped ‘park’ where you can learn all sorts of things about the history of agriculture in the Seychelles over the past few centuries. Admission to the park costs SCR 100, and it provides the only access to the beach. Following the signs, you soon reach a winding stretch of beach divided into many small sections by the rock formations so typical of La Digue. We spent a wonderful day here, staying to watch the sun set over the sea. Eating out on La Digue is comparatively expensive – even more so than on Mahé – so it is worth cooking for yourself occasionally. Our accommodation, like most others, had a well-equipped kitchen for this purpose. Shopping on La Digue is somehow part of the island experience too, as you may have to visit three or four shops to find what you are looking for, even if your requirements are not particularly extravagant.

After a few days, we took the ferry back to Mahé and then, sadly, returned home to cold Germany.

So far, we have only seen a fraction of the 115 islands that make up the Seychelles, and we will probably never manage to visit them all. But we are certain that we will try. The Seychelles are always worth returning to!