Flic en Flac (also written hyphenated as Flic-en-Flac) is a beach village on Mauritius’s southwestern coast, located 26 km from Port Luis and 46 km from the airport. Its funny name likely derives from the old Dutch phrase Fried Landt Flaak, meaning free flat land. 13 km of a continuous sand stretch renders it the longest beach in Mauritius, and some 500,000 annual visitors make it one of the most popular ones, too.
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Flic en Flac is an excellent destination for holiday-makers who want to avoid the more crowded and expensive northern resort villages such as Grand Baie. It features a wide gamut of accommodation options, ranging from luxury resorts to economical guest houses and everything in between. And unlike the north, it is strategically located near some of the country’s most spectacular natural wonders such as the Grand Bassin and the Black River Gorges National Park, allowing for convenient excursions.
Having chosen to base ourselves in Mahebourg during our two-month stay in Mauritius, we only visited Flic en Flac on a day trip. Following a two-hour scooter ride, we arrived on a quiet weekday morning.
The beachfront road teemed with villas, fancy restaurants, and beachwear shops. A broad casuarina grove bordered the beach. In its generous shade rested groups of local picnickers and foreign tourists. The latter’s skin color typically varied from milk-white to watermelon-red, signifying the number of days since their arrival. Ample food trucks also lay scattered throughout the grove, serving affordable and tasty Indian meals or ice cream. The nursery tunes that rang out of the latter kind infested your brain with earworms. At one point, there was also an interesting pyramid-like historical structure, which appeared to have been either a fortification or a kiln.
The long, broad, sunbed-free beach off the grove consisted of fine white sand leading gently into the impossibly colored sea. A captivating vista of the Indian Ocean’s blue immensity and the commanding silhouette of Morne Brabant mountain splayed out in the distance. The sea was pellucid and deep; probably the best swimming spot we tried on the island. As is common in Mauritian beaches, it was hemmed in by a swimming barrier. The sea remained calm for a considerable distance until the end of the lagoon, yet the touring and watersport speedboats that transected it posed a hazard.
After spending the whole day chilling on the beach, we enjoyed a beer at one of the lively uptown pubs before driving back home through the night.
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