KING'S GARDEN

Pepper's dream! Intendant of the islands of France and Bourbon, Pierre Poivre was at the origin not only of the first settlement of the Seychelles, but also of the introduction in these islands, in 1771, of spice plants, and more particularly of the cinnamon tree. That year, his emissary, Antoine Gillot, decided to choose Anse Royale, whose soil is excellent and well enough watered, for Poivre's botanical ideas to take shape. In May 1780, Lieutenant de Romainville, then representing the Intendant in the Seychelles, mistakenly had the plantations burned to remove them from what he believed to be an enemy ship. Today, in this same Anse Royale, one only has to follow the arrows to access the one hundred arpents of the King's Garden, at the foot of Mont Gratte-Fesse. Picking up on Pepper's idea, Brian and Micheline George had the good idea, on their return from a thirteen-year exile in the United States, to breathe new life into the Domaine de l'Enfoncement.

Around the old manor house, which has been converted into a small museum, you can now stroll freely for an hour through a pleasant tropical garden with fragrant scents. No less than fifty varieties of trees and shrubs with magical names for some: patchouli, cardamom, nutmeg... From avocado tree to cocoa tree and from pepper tree to cotton tree, a mix of plants where centuries-old cocos de mer (three females and two males) are enthroned. Palm and lataniers also grew up on the property, where sugar cane was revived. A mill was even built to crush it, as twenty-five men were needed to set up the Casuarina trunk. The rum of the Seychelles still flows only in droplets... So much effort has been put into restoring the reputation of a property that has been fallow for so long! To this new-found garden, a distillery of cinnamon essence, an exotic bird park, a reptilarium (snakes, geckos, chameleons, lizards), a children's park with goats and turtles, a rum distillery and a creperie restaurant where you can have a fresh fruit juice and enjoy an octopus curry, a salad or a pancake to the glory of the local fruits. And since the traveller always wants to get a taste of the places that enchant him, the new planters have thought of them by holding a shop next door. They mainly sell the products of their land, natural (pepper, cloves, cinnamon, dried peppers) or processed (candied ginger, lemon achards, papaya, turned papaya, coconut nougat ...), but also some beautiful handicrafts.