Ivory Coast holidays

Abidjan is genuinely West Africa's most-distinctive city. The Plateau (the central business district) holds the 1980s-era highrises that gave the city its "Manhattan of West Africa" nickname during the 1970s economic boom — the architectural ambition is impressive even though many buildings are now slightly faded. Saint Paul's Cathedral (1985) is the dramatic Aldo Spirito-designed cross-cable structure with the dramatic curved-cable roof. The lagoon (Lagune Ébrié) divides the city into the Plateau (business), Cocody (upmarket residential), Treichville (working-class and cultural), Marcory (mixed), and the suburbs further east — the inter-district ferry service is part of daily life. Treichville is the cultural heart for the nightlife scene — the Coco Beach restaurant strip, the live-music maquis (the informal restaurants with bands), and the Sunday-afternoon football culture. The Banco National Park rainforest on the city's northern edge is a genuine rainforest preserve within an urban area — 30 sq km of West African primary rainforest with monkeys and 50+ tree species.

The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace at Yamoussoukro is the country's most-extraordinary single structure. President Félix Houphouët-Boigny — the founding president who governed Côte d'Ivoire 1960-1993 — commissioned the basilica in his hometown of Yamoussoukro as a personal religious-political legacy project. Construction took 4 years (1985-1989). The dome (158m tall, 90m diameter) was deliberately designed slightly smaller than St Peter's dome in Rome out of theological respect, but the basilica is larger overall — covering 30,000 sq m of floor area vs St Peter's 23,000. The stained-glass windows (7,400 sq m of glass) include a portrait of Houphouët-Boigny among the saints (controversially — he requested the inclusion before his death). The basilica was consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1990 under conditions Houphouët-Boigny agreed (build a hospital nearby, allow the basilica to operate under Vatican oversight). The companion Yamoussoukro city — a quiet town of 200,000 — feels strange around the basilica's monumental scale.

The cocoa heritage is the country's economic backbone. Côte d'Ivoire produces 2.2 million tonnes of cocoa annually — 40% of the world supply, with the southern interior region between Daloa, Soubré and San Pedro being the heartland. Cocoa farming is small-holder — 6 million Ivorians work in cocoa, with average farm size of 2-5 hectares. Visits to working cocoa plantations are arranged through tour operators or directly through cocoa-cooperative offices in the regional capitals. The Festival du Chocolat in San Pedro each October celebrates the harvest. The country has been steadily moving from raw-bean export toward chocolate manufacturing — Cémoi (the largest Ivorian chocolate maker) and SAF-Cacao have built domestic manufacturing facilities.

The masked-dance tradition of the Dan, Mahou, Gouro, Senufo and We peoples in the western and northern interior is one of West Africa's most-significant cultural offerings. The Dan masks (originally from the Man region in the west) are the most-internationally-known — collected extensively by 1920s-30s Picasso and Braque, the Dan masks are now major holdings in the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the Met in New York, and the British Museum. Active masked-dance traditions continue in Dan villages around Man — the Man-region tour from Abidjan (8 hours by road, 1 hour by domestic flight) reaches villages where dance ceremonies are performed.

UK travellers need an e-Visa (apply online via the official Snedai government site, $73 USD, processing 24-72 hours). Côte d'Ivoire uses the West African CFA Franc (XOF, shared with seven other Francophone West African nations, pegged to the Euro at 655.957). French is the working language; English is patchy outside major hotels. The food: attiéké (the fermented cassava couscous — the national dish), kedjenou chicken (the slow-cooked spicy chicken in clay pots), garba (fried fish with attiéké), the Treichville night-market grilled fish, the Lebanese-Ivorian fusion at the Beirut Café and similar restaurants (Côte d'Ivoire has a significant Lebanese diaspora community shaping the restaurant scene), plus the country's ubiquitous bissap (hibiscus juice) and the locally-brewed Tuborg lager.

Best for: West Africa specialists, African-architecture travellers (the Basilica is genuinely remarkable), cocoa-trade and chocolate-heritage travellers, food-trade history travellers, beach-and-city combination travellers, masked-dance and West African art travellers. Often paired with Ghana (the historic British slave-trading forts) and Togo-Benin for a 3-week West African coast circuit. November-March is the dry season; April-October is the rainy season with afternoon downpours. Travel advice should be checked given regional security variations.