Praslin, La Digue and Mahé: A Tour of the Seychelles Islands

On Praslin, we stay at Domaine de la Réserve, located on Anse Petite Cour: a very lovely hotel with a pretty little beach rich in fish and coral. We immediately appreciate the temperature of the water! We are a 15-minute walk from Anse Volbert, a large beach with shifting turquoise waters, overlooking the islets of Chauve Souris and St Pierre. There are a few small shops where we buy samosas and good local beers for a picnic in the shade of the coconut palms, facing this beautiful beach. In the evening, we return to the restaurant at La Réserve, set on an illuminated pontoon where we can watch the beautiful fish while enjoying the excellent food!

Vallée de Mai, Anse Lazio (reached by TATA bus) and a tour of the island by taxi will remain wonderful memories of our stay on Praslin, as will the excursion to Curieuse Island, with its giant tortoises.

After being dazzled by Praslin, how could we expect anything better? Arriving at the picturesque little harbour of La Passe gives us a taste of what is to come! The island’s small size means that it takes very little time to discover its many wonderful beaches, with their enormous blocks of pink granite so typical of the Seychelles.

Our accommodation, in the north of La Digue, is at Patatran, overlooking the magnificent Anse Patates. The beach is tiny at high tide, but we swim there often and see a remarkable number of fish and other marine life, including rays, turtles, parrotfish and even a moray eel...

We hire bicycles (there are no cars on La Digue, which is all the better) and cycle 10 minutes to the famous Anse Source d’Argent, which truly deserves its reputation. It is a succession of small coves that we discover one by one: utterly enchanting!

The following day, we decide to explore the south-east of the island. We leave our bicycles at Grand Anse, the ‘end of the road’. This beach is large, almost deserted and wild, fringed by coconut palms and takamaka trees. We follow the small path through the lush vegetation and arrive at Petite Anse; it is almost the same size as Grand Anse and every bit as beautiful. We continue along the path through coconut palms and wild sugar cane. We get a little lost, but the sound of the sea tells us we cannot be far away... and then we arrive at Anse Cocos. I described this beach in an earlier paragraph, as we were so captivated by its unspoilt nature, the light, the colours and, once again, those famous, distinctive piles of boulders.

Our final day on La Digue is also very special to us, as we hike with a local guide to reach Anse Marron. This walk was the ‘highlight’ of our trip, described above.

We arrive at our hotel, the ‘Sunset Beach’, in the north of Mahé, near Beau Vallon. Our rooms are hidden among the vegetation, right beside the beach. The location is perfect, with Silhouette Island directly ahead. There are no bicycles here: the island is too large. We get around on the colourful local buses, whose Seychellois passengers far outnumber the tourists. The driving is not particularly smooth, while the timetables are very flexible indeed! We are on holiday, though, so it does not really matter!

We visit Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles. The market is full of colour, with spices, fish, fruit and vegetables. We buy vanilla and coconut oil. We pass the clock tower, ‘Big Ben’, and the Hindu temple, although unfortunately it is closed that day, and stroll through the streets. The shopkeepers, like all the Seychellois people we meet, are extremely friendly. Everywhere we go, we appreciate their smiles, kindness and delight in showing us their paradise.

We arrange a taxi tour of the island for the following day. The driver takes us to Morne Seychellois, the island’s highest point, where we enjoy fantastic views over the entire northern and north-western coastline.

We drive through a tea plantation and stop at the factory to buy some tea (we can confirm that it is good), before continuing our journey from cove to cove, taking plenty of photographs along the way: Anse aux Pins, Anse à La Mouche, Anse Takamaka, Portl Glaud... We also stop at the distillery to taste rums flavoured with vanilla or coconut. Naturally, we cannot resist buying a few small bottles! (Once we are back home, our friends enjoy these rums too during a few evenings together!) The taxi tour lasts most of the morning, and we spend the afternoon at Beau Vallon and Sunset Beach, enjoying the beach until evening. The end of our stay is already approaching, so we decide to take a ‘marine odyssey’ through Sainte Anne Marine Park. The boat passes the artificial island of Eden Island before heading towards Sainte Anne Island, where the snorkelling is excellent too. We stop on Moyenne Island and walk around it, accompanied by giant tortoises. We then continue to Cerf Island, where a fish barbecue awaits us—thankfully under cover, as we arrive in torrential rain. The rain lasts only as long as the meal, so we are then able to enjoy the beach before heading back. The following day, we catch our flight home to France, but we will not forget this trip any time soon! The only drawback is the cost of living, but perhaps that is the price to pay for the Seychelles to remain such an exceptional destination, without the disadvantages of mass tourism. Every island we visit enchants us, but La Digue dazzles us most of all: with its small size, lack of cars and bicycles, it is very easy to explore, and the beaches are truly heavenly.

As for those who say there is nothing to do in the Seychelles, they are mistaken: we are constantly on the move, making one discovery after another! We encounter no unpleasant surprises: the hotels are perfect and the inter-island transfers are very well organised. Well done, SeyVillas and Creole Travel Services.