Looking for a holiday destination that is truly breathtaking? Fancy somewhere with a beach and sailing opportunities, plus the cuisine and ambiance of a metropolitan city. A ideal vacation that offers all of this is a trip to the French colony of New Caledonia, located about halfway between Fiji and Australia.

This island is located farther south compared to other South Pacific islands, benefiting from southeast trade winds, lots of sunlight and balmy weather. If a sailing holiday is what you like, New Caledonia is situated in a part of the Pacific that has the biggest coral lagoon in the world. Sailing charters are available and with the assistance of the trade winds you can sail out of the capital city of Noumea along the coastal line, 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, snorkeling, horseback riding, canoeing, and kayaking.

If you were hoping for a gourmet holiday, New Caledonia has almost everything you could want. New Caledonia’s capital city, Noumea, widely known as the Paris of the Pacific. Noumea features delicate gourmet French food and wine along with the other benefits of a active cosmo town. The restaurants here are some of the best in the South Pacific. Claimed by France in 1853, New Caledonia has a well-defined French influence when it comes to food.

There are great deal of eateries, ranging from sidewalk cafes to high-class bistros. French cuisine is easy to come by, but other options include Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and African food. Seafood is a specialty of the Island, including spiny lobster, prawns, crab, and mangrove oysters. One of New Caledonia’s national dishes is Bougna, which is fish or chicken, mixed with sweet potatoes and bananas wrapped in banana leaves and then cooked covered in sand on hot stones. For the adventurous traveler on a gourmet vacation, you can sample 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 by the beach.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 11:47 am and is filed under Food And More, Internet Travel Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.