{"id":674053,"date":"2026-02-24T12:05:36","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/?p=674053"},"modified":"2026-02-24T12:05:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:05:38","slug":"between-granite-and-lagoons-the-seychelles-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/between-granite-and-lagoons-the-seychelles-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Between granite and lagoons, the call of the Seychelles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lost in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles archipelago is home to some of the world's most idyllic spots. More authentic than the Caribbean, the Seychelles speak colorful French, their hospitality is legendary and there's no rush.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Eric Vancleynenbreugel<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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116 tropical islands, most of them uninhabited, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This verdant, fish-filled paradise on earth, with no dangerous animals, remained unoccupied until the end of the 18th century.e<\/sup> century! It seems that only a few Arab sailors came here to stock up on fresh water and, above all, cocos de mer (sea nuts), which were then traded for heaps of gold. Long after their discovery, these isolated lands served as a base for the buccaneers who harassed the ships laden with spices, tea and silk... The history of the Seychelles is thus made up of romantic episodes, and there is still very serious talk here of mysterious treasures buried in the islands... In several places, enthusiasts are still digging in the sand, and there are many stories about fortunes that would have blossomed overnight!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mah\u00e9, land of the middle<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mah\u00e9, a traveller's first contact with the Seychelles, offers a picture of soft greens and turquoise blues as soon as you land. This island, beautifully blistered with granite, is home to the majority of the 80,000 Seychellois population, but is nonetheless very natural. Victoria, the micro-city, can be crossed on foot in 5 minutes. Probably the world's smallest capital. In the Seychelles, everyone knows a little bit of everyone, and the country functions like a big village. So when a citizen wishes to make a complaint, for example, he or she goes straight to the office of the relevant minister... Victoria may not be big, but it retains a lot of charm and hardly changes at all over the years. Older people in their Sunday best stock up on fish, fresh vegetables and spices at the colorful morning market. For emergencies and other products, depending on arrivals, there are a few corrugated iron stalls run by Asians. You can't miss the capital's landmark, a curious silver clock, a replica of the one at the intersection of Victoria Street and Vauxhall Bridge Road near London's Victoria station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mah\u00e9's rugged terrain rises to almost 1,000 m at Morne Seychellois. Established as a national park for half of the country, this vast high-altitude forest shares its western slope with tea plantations and offers breathtaking panoramic views of the coast and ocean. Further inland, the Jardin du Roy was created at the instigation of Pierre Poivre to acclimatize foreign spices. A visit that complements that of the Victoria Botanical Gardens. From north to south, Mah\u00e9's coastline is strewn with scree and granite glacis. From cove to cove, the island offers its often deserted white-sand beaches, sometimes lapped by calm waters, sometimes tirelessly scraped by powerful rollers. The traveller will sometimes have the feeling of being the first to tread the floury sand of certain wild coves... Could this be a slight foretaste of what the other islands have in store?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Praslin: cathedral palms<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Measuring 11 km by 4 km, the archipelago's second-largest island has just 6,000 inhabitants. Like Mah\u00e9, it is granite, which gives it its white sandy beaches dotted with black rocks. A veritable exotic Japanese garden! Praslin is certainly a garden. Didn't one of its first explorers locate the Garden of Eden here when he discovered the Vall\u00e9e de Mai? Here, for example, grows one of the strangest plants in creation, known to all botanists. What's its name? Coco de mer, because when men saw walnuts washed up on beaches, they thought they came from a sea tree. Or when nature takes pleasure in humorously imitating human attributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Vall\u00e9e de Mai is home to the world's last large population of this unique plant: around 500 females and 700 males. Only a few specimens remain on Curieuse, in the Mah\u00e9 Botanical Garden and on Silhouette Island. A walk through this strange valley is like stepping back in time several million years, when the Seychelles were part of the primitive continent of Gondwana. In the shade of the immense palms, which clatter together in a surprising metallic noise, a path allows you to discover some of the endemic species of the Seychelles, some of which have not evolved for 150 million years. These islands are like a flotilla of Noah's arks, preserving species that have long since disappeared elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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La Digue, pub island<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From Praslin, it's just a short hop to a handful of small, often deserted islands: Chauve Souris, Curieuse (aptly named for its intriguing mangroves and wild beaches), Saint-Pierre, Cousin and Aride (both bird sanctuaries). And then there's La Digue with its 2,000 inhabitants, reached by schooner. The pace of life here is as slow as the island's means of transport: the oxcart! The best way to visit La Digue is to rent a bike when you arrive at the little port, so you can explore the island at your own pace, from beach to beach. The island is famous for the commercials that have been filmed here, at Anse Source d'Argent to be precise, an endless tongue of floury sand hemmed with natural basins. Paradise has its pool, and it's here! On the way, you can stock up on vanilla at the entrance to the coconut plantation and take a tour of the house where Emmanuelle had her erotic romps, now the second home of the head of state!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Golden retreat on Silhouette<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This island has retained the best of the exotic world of yesteryear and opens a door on the original aspect of the Seychelles. Entirely covered by lush vegetation, its steep relief has preserved it and the island is considered by naturalists to be one of the Indian Ocean's most biodiverse. It was here that a miraculous episode in the fight for species protection took place: South African Ron Gerlach raised and bred the last specimens of the Seychelles tortoise, a species thought to have been extinct since the 19th century.e<\/sup> century. An incredible adventure that began by chance, with a 140-year-old male specimen held by a Mah\u00e9 hotelier, who was astonished by its morphology, which differed from that of other turtles from Aldabra, the only atoll where, it was thought, the large land tortoise survived in the Indian Ocean. All that was missing was the female, discovered - the second part of the miracle - on Ile Cerf a short time later. In the early 2000s, the first hatchlings were released and began to repopulate the wilder parts of Silhouette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Despite being the third largest island in the Seychelles, Silhouette is virtually uninhabited. Only one small village worthy of the name nestles under the coconut trees, where once a wealthy family, the Daubans, had set up a plantation. The head of the family was still said to be a particularly tyrannical man, reigning over his servants like an absolute monarch. One of his fanciful ideas was to plant cocos de mer at an altitude of 300 m, forcing his workers to leave regularly to water them. Today, Jardin Marrons is a popular destination for a stroll. The final reminders of this family are the family vault buried in the vegetation and, of course, the large mansion now converted into the restaurant of the neighboring hotel. Silhouette's shallow lagoon is ideal for swimming, and at low tide you can even walk out to the coral reef to observe the rich underwater fauna. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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North Island, robinsonnade grand luxe<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From Silhouette, you can see North Island in the distance. A deserted island, apart from a dozen villas recently designed to be in symbiosis with nature. The architects used local materials in their construction. But the ultimate in luxury on North Island (North Island - North Island<\/a>) is space. And freedom. To live barefoot. It's easy to be alone. To enjoy a meal based on the island's produce whenever and wherever you want. The infinity pool overlooking the ocean is a dream. And as soon as you leave your villa, you'll feel like you're the first to set foot on the soft sands of the wild coves...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Outer islands<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Further out, on the edge of the world, a myriad of other islands invite you to even more isolated adventures. They bear dreamy names: Poivre Atoll, Bancs Africains, Bijoutier, Providence, Assomption and... Aldabra, the largest atoll on Earth, inhabited by thousands of giant tortoises. The only humans living on Aldabra are the few scientists and national park rangers, but if you book well in advance, you can reach them by boat. Other islands, such as Alphonse and Fr\u00e9gate, are home to exclusive resorts. If you want to feel alone in paradise, there's no better place to do so. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carnet de voyage<\/u><\/strong>:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

- Formalities<\/strong>Valid passport. Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) to be requested on the website https:\/\/seychelles.govtas.com<\/a>. Proof of accommodation or invitation to Seychelles. No vaccinations required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

- Climate<\/strong>Temperature: between 24 and 32\u00b0C year-round. The season is hot and humid from December to March, and cooler and drier from May to September. Please note: depending on the season, some beaches are covered with seaweed, others are not. Find out more before choosing your holiday destination!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

- Language<\/strong>Creole, but everyone speaks French.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

- Currency<\/strong>Currency: the Seychelles rupee, especially for small purchases. The euro is accepted everywhere and sometimes even required (hotel fees, excursions, etc.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

- Transport<\/strong> Inter-island connections are made either by small plane with Air Seychelles (15 minutes between Mah\u00e9 and Praslin), or by helicopter, or for the nearest islands by fast boat from Mah\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

- More info<\/strong> : www.seychelles.travel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photos: Eric Vancleynenbreugel<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perdu au milieu de l\u2019oc\u00e9an Indien, l\u2019archipel des Seychelles abrite quelques-uns des lieux parmi les plus idylliques du monde. Plus authentique que les Cara\u00efbes, on y parle un fran\u00e7ais color\u00e9, l\u2019hospitalit\u00e9 y est l\u00e9gendaire et on ne s\u2019y bouscule pas. Par Eric Vancleynenbreugel 116 \u00eeles tropicales, dont la plupart sont inhabit\u00e9es, en plein milieu de l\u2019oc\u00e9an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":674063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674053"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":674112,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674053\/revisions\/674112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tourisimaguide.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}