Introducing Diamant

Diamant is a seaside town on the southern coast that’s slightly more developed than its neighbors. The main road runs near, but not right on, the beach. The beaches here stretch for 2km beside town, but because of a bad current and violent waves, it’s important to ask at your hotel for a safe place to swim.

For visitors, the best Diamant has to offer are some nice hotels, a row of pizzerias and snack places, an internet cafe and a few banks along the main drag. It’s a good base to explore the western horn of the island – which, oddly enough, is shaped a little bit like France. The town also affords a nice view of Rocher du Diamant, a 176m-high volcanic islet that’s a popular dive site, with interesting cave formations but tricky water conditions. To explore this underwater jewel, visit the dive operators at nearby Grande Anse.

Just north of town on the D7 is Le Musée des Coquillages et de la Mer Seeing hard-to-find shells found in Japan in the 1760s, or off the coast of South Africa in the 1880s, is actually fun.