Madagascar

An ancient island that split off from the mainland millions of years ago, Madagascar has perhaps the richest concentration of endemic natural and animal species in the world, famous above all for being the magical home of lemurs, chameleons and the spectacular varieties of baobabs, which legend describes as having been condemned by the gods to grow upside down, with their roots pointing upwards.

“The Red Island” is the land of national parks, covered with forests and savannahs, of spontaneous essences and colourful spices that smell of vanilla, ylang-ylang and cinnamon. Madagascar is a magical land of sacred waterfalls and caves inhabited by spirits, as well as a picture-postcard coastline, coral reefs and tropical archipelagos, nestled in the Indian Ocean, white beaches fringed with palm trees and mangroves. Madagascar has all the ingredients for an adventure of discovery among the red earth tracks, a destination that is both naturalistic and cultural, where populations hand down ancient traditions, mysterious cults of the dead and ancestral prohibitions that govern tribal societies, in symbiosis with a biodiversity rich in wonders, the result of surprising endemic evolutionism.

From the capital “Tanà” (Antananarivo), a crossroads of African, Indonesian, European, Indian and Arab origins, perched on the flanks of green hills, dominated by the 19th-century Palace of the Queen of Merina, to the coastal town of Diego Suarez, steeped in historical evocations; from the immaculate sandy tongues of the azure archipelago of Nosy Be, to the surreal labyrinths of the limestone peaks of Tsigny National Park, crossing the rugged sandstone gorges of Isalo; from the monumental and enchanting Alley of the Baobabs, magical trees that embody the spirits of nature, to the turquoise waters of the beaches of Anakao; from the ancient pirate hideout of Sainte Marie Island, among the ghostly underwater wrecks, to the Pangolane Channel, dotted with traditional fishing villages. There are countless itineraries to discover the most evocative corners and traditions of this “Grande Ile”, the fourth largest in the world, where every landscape is never the same. A morphological variety that rises up to 2,860 metres on the plateaus, and an astonishing natural wealth, in which the rice paddies, the magical baobabs, the herds of zebu, so precious to Malagasy culture, and the exciting encounter with the numerous species of lemurs, will be the only constant.