HOLIDAY IN FRENCH GUIANA   >   LATIN AMERICA 


Department of Guiana  -  French Guiana  -  Guyane, an overseas department of France.

French Guyana is located in the north of South America at the Atlantic Ocean between Brazil and Suriname. It's also a part of the European Union.

Dégrad des Cannes, Saint-Georges, Saint-Laurel du Maroni, Saul

Capital City of French Guiana:: Cayenne


hotels, tour operators - guyana tours, travel guides, travel to french guiana

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Hotels in French Guiana

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Expedia.co.uk has room for everyone to relax on their perfect trip. 

National Parks

  Nourages Nature Reserve
This nature reserve is around 60 miles from the Atlantic coast, stretching over the towns of Roura and Régina . The reserve is centered around a 400-m² inselberg and is renowned for the diversity of the scenery and for its luxuriant flora. The wildlife here includes macaws, large rodents, monkeys, iguanas and a few rare species such as the orange-breasted falcon and the cock of the rock.

Travel Agent / Tour Operator



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Flight, Hotel and Car.



     Inbound

  Couleurs Amazone based at 2, bis avenue Pasteur - 97300 Cayenne
  GuyanEspace Voyages based at Kourou
For holiday packages, specially designed by the pioneers of the European space adventure and specialists in French Guiana. Tourism combining high technology and explore the many facets of ecology, ethnology. Adventure and exploration in the optimum conditions of comfort, quality and safety.
  Takari Tour   -   Adventure and discoveries in Guyane

Travel Guides French Guiana / Related Books

Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana  -   Peter Redfield
Rockets roar into space - bearing roughly half the world's commercial satellites - from the same South American coastal rainforest where convicts once did time on infamous Devil's Island. What makes this book enthralling is anthropologists Peter Redfield's ability to draw from these two disparate European projects in French Guyana a gleaming web of ideas about the intersections of nature and culture. In comparing the Franco-European Ariane rocket program with the earlier penal experiment, Redfield connects the myth of Robinson Crusoe, 19th century prison reform, the Dreyfus Affair, tropical medicine, post-war exploration of outer space, satellite technology, development and ecotourism with a focus on place, and the incorporation of this particular place into greater extended systems. Examining the wider context of the Ariane program, he argues that technology and nature must be understood within a greater ecology of displacement and makes a case for the importance of margins in understanding the trajectories of modern life.
Hardcover 368 pages (January 16, 2001);  Publisher: University of California Press;  Language: English;  ISBN: 0520219848

Transportation / How do I travel to French Guyana

  Cayenne Rochambeau Airport

  Air France / KLM UK   -   Flight tickets French Guiana

 
Book cheap flights to French Guiana at ebookers and benefit from discounted airfares. View their latest offers and book your flights, accommodation, car hire and insurance online

  Airline Tickets /  Bargain Flights  
Flight tickets French Guiana, price comparison possible.

  Online map of French Guiana [ Uni Texas  -  Perry-Castañeda Library  -  Map Collection ]


Links

  Tourist Board of French Guiana

  Cayenne  -  Capital City French Guiana

  Dégrad des Cannes  [ border Suriname ]
  Iracoubo
The town of Iracoubo, created at the beginning of the 19th century, became famous thanks to the arrival of Father Prosper Raffray. He was to be the man behind the church, which was painted entirely by hand by a convict whose name has gone down in history, Huguet. An absolute must to see or do: The Church of Saint-Joseph - The Amerindian village of Bellevue - Bathing in Morpio Creek
  Iracoubo
The town of Iracoubo, created at the beginning of the 19th century, became famous thanks to the arrival of Father Prosper Raffray. He was to be the man behind the church, which was painted entirely by hand by a convict whose name has gone down in history, Huguet. An absolute must to see or do: The Church of Saint-Joseph - The Amerindian village of Bellevue - Bathing in Morpio Creek
  Kourou   -   with space center [ Arianespace ]
  Saint-Georges   -   border town on the Oyapock river
Border between Brazil and French Guyana.
  Saint-Laurel du Maroni   -   border town
Border between Surinam and French Guyana. on the Maroni River
  Saul   -   in the middle of the country and only reached by plane
Activities in the town : gold mining and trekking [ rainforest trails ]. There is a tourist camp (Larozaly) and hotel (Les Eaux Claires) in the town.


  Devil's Island   -   Isles du Salut
Ten miles off the coast of Kourou, lies a small archipelago consisting of Ile Royale, Ile Saint Joseph and Ile du Diable, or Devil's Island, where the Penal Colony was set up in 1852.
Over time, this prison, set on islands of lush vegetation, surrounded by an emerald sea, came to be one of the most famous in the world, with famous convicts such as the Captain Dreyfus, Seznec or Papillon. It has now been transformed into an enchanting area for walking among the vestiges of the prison or swimming in the crystal clear water. The îles du Salut are also a favorite among game fishing lovers.
  Hattes Beach
The Beaches of les Hattes and Montjoly are undoubtedly the ideal spots to watch the Leatherback Turtle. From April to July, these huge sea creatures, that can reach up to 6 feet in length and can weigh up to 1,500 lbs., can be seen laying eggs. From August to October, the beaches are the scene for the moving sight of the birth of these thousands of turtles that one day will come back to lay their own eggs on one of these beaches....
  Maroni River
This river, which separates Surinam from French Guiana, runs through some magnificent scenery on its 330 -mile journey, via a series of rapids. The river runs through a number of picturesque villages, such as Apatou, Grand Santi and Papaichton, where the ancestral peoples, such as the Noirs Marrons and the Maroni Amerindians still live.
  Mount Favard
This wonderful setting, 40 m south-east of Cayenne, near the Kaw Swamps, has kept the traces of French Guiana's first inhabitants, the Arawak and Carib Indians. This footpath is the ideal way of exploring and discovering the mysteries of this pre-Columbian period.
The ruins of the Favard House, with its mill and its sugar cane boiler, are a reminder of the colonial past of this region, where sugar cane, cocoa beans and coffee were grown. An exact copy of this rock carving made out of synthetic resin can be admired on the ground floor of the French Guiana Tourist Board in Cayenne.
  Oyapock basin
As you travel the river that separates French Guiana from Brazil, you will discover a fascinating region. This magnificent river has some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the whole territory.
Ten miles from the town of Saint Georges, which marks the border with Brazil, the Maripa Falls form one of the most beautiful natural sites in French Guiana.
It can be reached by a track or by canoe and you can spend the night there before beginning a trip up the Oyapock to discover the Amerindian villages that line the river.
Who knows, maybe you will stumble across the mythical city of Eldorado, that one legend says marks the source of the Oyapock.

  IRD Cayenne [ L'Institut de recherche pour le développement ]


  Eldorado
  Spacecenter   -   French Guiana Space Center  -   Launches, events, expositions etc.
The Space Port of Europe in Kourou offers free 4-hour long guided tours that include: a film that tells the history of the Space Center, a visit to the Jupiter control center, the whole of a launch of Ariane 4 and the even more powerful Ariane 5.
Watching Ariane from launch pad to orbit is an unforgettable experience. Come to one of the observation points set at a distance of 3 and 4.5 miles and play a part in man's conquest of space

Cuisine  -  Cooking Recipes

French Guianese gastronomy is a fabulous and audacious blend of the traditions of several continents. Its eloquent richness will delight any palate in search of exotic delights.
The generous sea and the territory's many rivers mean that you will not leave French Guiana without having tasted, in a court-bouillon, blaffed or grilled, a wide variety of fish such as red snapper, weakfish, machoiran, grouper or shark, not forgetting seafood, giant prawns or crabs.
The forest also provides Guyanese cuisine with riches, and there are many dishes with game such as collared peccary, white-lipped peccary, paca, tapir or agouti, eaten as a fricassee and accompanied by rice, couac, roasted manioc and kidney beans.
The huge variety and abundance of fruit, pineapples, mangoes, papayas, rambutans and bananas, also contribute to the specificity of the Guyanese relaxed rhythm of life.

  Antilles Resto   -   le guide des restaurants et des recettes de cuisine creole
La gastronomie de Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane, Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin.

History of French Guiana

In January 1500, two years after Christopher Columbus' famous journey, Vincent Pinson became the first person to explore French Guiana. Around 1643, in their search for Eldorado, companies such as France Equinoxiale and Cap Nord began the colonization of French Guiana.

Colonization:  in 1644, Governor Poncet de Brétigny set up a fort on the highest hill in Cayenne, which he named Cépérou, after a Galibi Indian chief.

Gold and the penal colony:  in the 17th century, what is now French Guiana saw influxes of French, Spanish, English and Dutch, all eager to search for the mythical Eldorado.

In 1852, in order to be able to close down the prisons in Toulon, Brest and Rochefort, France decided to make Guiana a penal administration. Over 80,000 prisoners arrived in French Guiana over the years, from the Transportation Camp to the Iles du Salut. Among them were Dreyfus, Papillon and Seznec.

  History of French Guiana 

  Franconie Museum
The Franconie Museum, the cultural heart of French Guiana, is located in Cayenne in a beautiful Creole house that is now a listed building. Everything that Guyanese heritage has to offer is on display here, be it cultural, artistic or natural. It is an essential visit for anybody wishing to understand the charm of French Guiana. See Tourisme-guyane.com
  Museum of Guyanese Cultures   -  guardian of Guianese heritage
The Museum of Guyanese Cultures, set in a pretty traditional house in Cayenne, is the centerpiece of Guyanese heritage. The exhibits and the resource center retrace the history and culture of Guyanese society. See Tourisme-guyane.com.

Music, Arts & Culture French Guiana, Events

  Music of French Guiana

  Carnaval de Guyane   -   Fédération des Festivals et Carnavals de Guyane


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