Do you want a vacation that is truly unique? You might be thinking of somewhere that provides beaches and sailing opportunities, plus the cuisine and ambience of a metropolitan city. A perfect vacation that has all of this is a trip to the French settlement of New Caledonia, situated between Australia and Fiji.

As New Caledonia is located farther south than many of the other islands of the South Pacific, its climate benefits from southeast trade winds, plenty of sun, and balmy weather. If a sailing holiday is what you like, New Caledonia is based in a part of the Pacific that has the greatest coral lagoon in the world. Sailing charters are available and with the aid of the trade winds you can sail out of the capital city of Noumea along the coastline, past the many small islands that dot the ocean around the New Caledonia. There are also plenty of other outdoor activites such as scuba diving, snorkel diving, horseback riding, canoeing, and kayaking.

If you were thinking of a gourmet holiday, New Caledonia has almost everything you could want. New Caledonia’s capital, Noumea, widely known as the Paris of the Pacific. Noumea offers delicate gourmet French food and wine along with the other benefits of a active cosmo town. Some of the finest restaurants in the South Pacific can be found here. Colonised by the French in 1853, New Caledonia has a well-defined French influence when it comes to food and wine.

There are great deal of restaurants, ranging from sidewalk cafes to elegant bistros. French cuisine is easy to come by, but other selections include Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and African food. Seafood is a speciality of the Island, including spiny lobster, prawns, crab, and mangrove oysters. One of the national dishes is Bougna, which is fish or chicken, mixed with sweet potatoes and bananas wrapped in banana leaves and then steamed covered in sand on hot stones. For the adventurous traveler on a gastronome holiday, you can try a dish favourite with the locals, bat stew.

New Caledonia is the vacation destination you want to be: a sailing holiday, a gourmet holiday, or a time to just relax on the beaches.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 6:10 am and is filed under Lots Of Travel Resources, Vittles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.