With the lure of several world-class diving sites just outside the harbour, you can be forgiven for not hanging around Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles.
But visitors to this supremely sleepy town on the largest of the islands, Mahé, find several handsome colonial mansions, some excellent Creole eateries, and a meticulously groomed Botanical Gardens.
More importantly, there's also the National Museum which goes some way in unravelling the strands of African, English and French lineage that were knotted together in the creation of the islands' spice plantations during the 18th and 19th centuries.
But you don't come to the Seychelles to peer into dusty cabinets. The only glass you should be looking through is that of a diving mask or on the bottom of a pleasure boat.
A long-term ban on spear fishing has left a generation of fish so people-friendly that you become the main attraction as soon as you take the plunge amongst the corals of the Aldabra atoll. The ban doesn't extend into the deeper waters where barracudas and marlin are regular victims of big game fishing.
At the other end of the adventure and interaction scale, snorkelling in the calm lagoons of the St Anne National Park can be just as rewarding and far more fish-friendly.
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