Fifteen minutes by plane or 3 hours by boat, 45km northeast of Mahé, will take you to the site of Adam’s original love nest with Eve. Or so the legend goes. Peaceful Praslin’s 6,500 (human) residents, many of whom consider Mahé too "noisy" and urbane, share Seychelles’ second largest island with many plants found nowhere else on the planet and even within the Seychelles. Chief of this is the inimitable giant coconut, larger than the largest coconut you can imagine. Christened Coco de-Mar, this coconut grows only here and nowhere else.
A granite island like its big sister Mahé, the less mountainous Praslin stands at the forefront of Seychelles’ tourism. Praslin’s pristine splendor is just one of its many jewels that magnetize tourists. It is a beguiling package of refined and rustic lodging options, unrelenting hospitality, superb beaches, laid back charisma and intriguing magic.
Praslin is proud host to one of Seychelles’s two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the fabulous Vallée de Mai. Perhaps it has something to do with the centuries-old rumor that this was the paradise lost of Adam and you-know-who, perhaps not. Rumor aside, this tiny paradise isle has much that no other earthly abode may claim. There’s the legend Coco-de-Mer, the world's heaviest nut growing high on ancient palms in a primeval forest, and six other extraordinary palm species. Then there are the rare pandans or screwpines, broad-leaved trees, birds, animals, insects, and much more.
Pirates of pre-18th century were among the first to enjoy the remote, unknown, spectacular jewel of the Seychelles, particularly Praslin's Côte d'Or. French navigator Lazare Picault arrived in 1744 to explore the granitic islands and christened it Isle des Palmes.
Years later it was re-christened Praslin after the French marine minister Duc de Praslin in 1768, when the original 'Stone of Possession' (known till now as Anse Possession) was erected to commemorate French proprietorship, and when they discovered Vallée de Mai and its mystical coconut.
Though marked with the same ethnic configuration as Mahé’s, Praslin locals would rather be regarded as a distinct breed from all other Seychellois. Ever since settlers first made home here, the lifestyle, flavor, pace of life in Praslin has indeed evolved into its own. Nothing and no one, not even the mounting flood of tourism and the development along with it, has dented this legacy.
