The Ivory Coast

In our armchair travels we have been traveling in West Africa. Our first stop was Nigeria and now we have arrived in the Ivory Coast or Cote d’Ivoire. This is a West African country with beach resorts, rain forests and a French-colonial legacy.

The capital city of Cote d’Ivoire is Yamoussoukro. This city is best known for its

enormous Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro with lovely stained-glass windows and towering dome. The city is also the birthplace of 20^th century President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, whose former palace comes with a lagoon filled with crocodiles.

Grand-Bassam is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Here you can see elegant Parisian mansions and crafted colonial municipal buildings in the Ancient Bassam District. It was once the capital of the French Ivory Coast.

Visitors can see many impressive buildings like the great Cathedral Sacre Coeur.

The New Grand-Bassam is home to lovely beaches and resort hotels.

Visit Abidjan a city located on the southern Atlantic coast. It is the country’s major urban center. Its skyscrapers rise about the Ebrie Lagoon.

Among the modern landmarks is La Pyramide, a ziggurat-like building. There is St. Paul’s Cathedral which is a high rising structure with a massive cross.

At the Le Musee des Civilisations de Cote d’Ivoire visitors can see artwork, cultural relics and handicrafts.

Take a hike to the soaring Toura Mountains deep in the heartland of the country and the rustic town of Man.

Here you’ll find the Cascades waterfall which always draws crowds. There are plantain farms and cocoa plantations.

The peaks of Tonkoui and Toura are the two highest on the Ivory Coast. There are bamboo forest to explore where you’ll see multi-colored butterflies and in the undergrowth rare insects.

The Tai National Park stretches for more than 3,000 square kilometers. This is one of the greatest protected areas of what remains of the Upper Guinean rainforests.

This is a feral land with colossal river valleys, moist woods, mountains and rolling savannah. Making their home here are the endangered pygmy hippopotamus,

swinging olive colobus monkeys, duikers and chimpanzees.

Tiny Jacqueville offers stretches of Ivorian ivory sands right down to the sea. Here you’ll find sundrenched beaches and pineapple groves.

There are clusters of old Parisian arcades and colonial buildings in the shade of palm trees. Beach huts and timber longboats along the shore.

Jutting out from the southern forests of the Ivory Coast you’ll find the harbors of San-Pedro. This is the second-largest port town in the country shipping out cargo of metal ore and minerals and fish.

Korhogo today is a quiet place. This mud-caked city has fascinating and bustling bazaars offering cotton, cashew nuts and spices and much more. Woodcarvers Quarter has many whittled crafts and the Village des Tisserands is home to batik cloth makers.

Bouake is the crossroads between the Ivorian north and the Ivorian south. It sits between the Atlantic Coast, the northern borders, Guinea in the east and Ghana in the west. Of interest are the markets and arts and crafts.

Along the Ghanaian borderlands you’ll find the Comoe National Park for eco-tourists and outdoor lovers.

Here are gallery forests and rolling savannah plains and the Comoe River.

Visitors can see yellow-backed duikers and Mona monkeys, colobuses and pangolins, leopards, lions and much more.

The most celebrated beach resort in the country is Assouinde. You’ll find stretches of yellow sand and great hotels and accomodations.

On one side are mirror-like lagoons and winding waterways and on the other the Atlantic surf.

All this and so much more awaits visitors to the Ivory Coast.

 

 

https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-ivory-coast/

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