The Petite Côte — Saly, Somone and Joal-Fadiouth

Senegal's holiday coast

South of Dakar, the Petite Côte strings together a hundred kilometres of sheltered beaches and seaside resorts. Saly, the best known, concentrates resort hotels, residences and beachfront restaurants — the ideal base for a feet-in-the-water stay, under two hours from AIBD airport by motorway.

Nature within reach of the beach

At Somone, a lagoon listed as a community nature reserve is best explored by pirogue among herons, pelicans and sandbanks. A little further south, the cliffs of Popenguine shelter a nature reserve and a Marian sanctuary that draws a major pilgrimage every Pentecost. All along the coast, the beaches of Ngaparou, Somone and Nianing offer quieter alternatives to Saly.

Joal-Fadiouth, the shell island

At the far end of the Petite Côte, Joal — birthplace of Léopold Sédar Senghor, whose family house is now a museum — faces Fadiouth, an island built entirely on layers of seashells accumulated over centuries, linked to the mainland by a wooden footbridge. Its mixed cemetery, where Christians and Muslims rest side by side, is one of the finest symbols of Senegalese religious tolerance.