Travel 43
‘Mixologists rattle cocktails so
vigorously they might register
on the Richter scale’
Susan d’Arcy drinks it all in at a luxury new Paris stay
Travel
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52
Beau Vallon on MahéGETTY IMAGES; ALAMYwedding anniversary — and then, as
Covid delayed things, we added a post-
lockdown celebration to the list.
And here we finally were, all of us
together in the tropical paradise
we’d dreamt about through three
lockdowns and one horrible bout
of Covid, and it felt... weird. It felt
unreal. The heat felt strange, that
sticky, soupy equatorial heat that
hits you like an oven when you
step off the plane. Those first
views of looming jungle, granite
rock and bright, bright sky like
stepping into a film. Even seeing
each other for the first time, watching
the kids run through palm trees to
throw themselves into the arms of their
grandparents — pure fiction.Is it still paradise
when three
generations go on
holiday together?
Francisca Kellett
gives her verdict
‘W
ell, that’s obvi-
ously fake,”
the 12-year-old
said, scoffing at
a flurry of
pink bougain-
villea hanging
over our heads. I assured her that it was
real, that neon pink is a totally natural
colour in the tropics. “It’s weird here,” she
said, and we walked on through the dusk,
giant fruit bats circling overhead and
wonky, unfamiliar constellations pricking
the darkening sky. She had a point.
My dad had been planning this trip to
the Seychelles for nearly two years, a full-
family, multigenerational knees-up to
celebrate various Very Important Dates —
my brother’s 50th, my parents’ goldenIt wasn’t fiction. We were here and it was
real, even if just a few short weeks ago it
had seemed impossible, before the
sudden change to the red list meant it
was all systems go. The stars had
aligned, the Seychelles was open
for business, and we couldn’t be-
lieve our luck.
Not that it wasn’t nail-biting
right up until we were taking off.
The country has had tremen-
dous vaccination success —
nearly 80 per cent of the popula-
tion has had both jabs — and it’s
understandably cautious. Visitors
must have a PCR test within 72 hours
of departure, and fill in long, arduous
forms before travelling. And the trip itself
isn’t as simple as it once was: WSeychelles with all the family
Giant tortoises are bred
on Moyenne Island