Mahé Off The Beaten Path

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The touristinformation of Mahe and the Seychelles is inside one of the bureaus at the crossing of independance Avenue and 5th June Avenue,next to a roundabout with the monument of the "3 moons", that are symbolizing the 3 main religions of the Seychelles : Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
The touristinformation of Mahe is open for visitors :
Monday till Friday: 08.00am - 05.00pm
Saturdays : 09.00am - 12.00 noon
closed on Sundays & public Holidays!

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Cascade is a village next to the airport and they also have quite an impressive christian church that I could see from the distance, when passing by in the tourbus to Jardin du Roi.
Once that you have left the busy town of Victoria, there are wide streets with almost no trafic for easy driving.

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Sans Souci in Mahe is a scenic viewpoint high above the town of Victoria, where all of these photos were taken, when we came back from our halday-tour of the island Mahe. We were also lucky to see a "flying fox" / Fliegender Hund, quite a large bat (see my last pic!).
Some of the islands in front of Victoria are artificial islands.
In order to get there by taxi you might need about 10-15 minutes one way !

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Ile Hodoul is a small island in the port of Victoria,there are lots of trees on that island and also 2 buildings, it looks a bit like a treasure-island, and in fact it was used first by a pirate named Jean-Francois Hodoul in 1803 and later the island was used in order to store explosives.
Ile Hodoul is in the "inner Harbour"

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"The man in chains" or "the man escaping his chains" is a monument next to the Seychelles National Museum of history and in front of the stadium and it is one of the first monuments that you will see, when walking from the cruiseport to the city of Victoria, that is said to be the smallest capital in the whole world.
In my 3rd pic you will see a sculpture of 4 fish, and in my last 2 pics there is another monument with 3 moons, symbolizing the 3 main religions in Seychelles : chistianity, hinduism and Islam.

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Esplanade Fiennes is a boulevard dating back to 1919 as a part of Francis rachel Street. It starts at the house of justice and takes you back towards the port, passing along various souvenir-stands and also some interesting colonial houses. In some of these souvenir-stands you will be able to buy a Coco-de-mer, including the certificate that you will need in order to be allowed to export it and also to take it to your own country.
Be careful about sea-shells and corals, most countries in the world will not allow you to import them !!!

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It was quite surprising for me to see that there are quite a lot of Art-Nouveau-buildings in Victoria, obviously the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century was a prosperous time for the Seychelles and the rich merchants were able to engage great, contemporary architects. The cinema of Victoria is such a building, there is also a videothek in the same building.
In order to get to the Art-nouveau-cinema just take a walk from the clocktower in direction of the catholic cathedral, it is at almost the end of that street.

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In the french language Poivre is the expression for pepper and obviously this word was choosen because of Pierre Poivre, (born 23. August 1719 in Lyon; † 6. Januar 1786 in Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or). He was an expert for gardening but also a missionary in China before he became the governor of Mauritius und Réunion.
He founded the botanical garden of Victoria and in Mauritius he founded the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden.
The monument of Pierre Poivre is situated in front of the hall of Justice at Freedom-square.