Day 1

Arrival in Cotonou, Benin's largest city. We will meet you at the airport and transfer you to your hotel. Accommodation in Cotonou.

Day 2

Cotonou, country's business hub, is home to around 700 000 Beninese. Although the metropolitan area is home to up to two million people. However, Cotonou is not the capital, but the smaller Porto-Novo, a short distance to the east, is.

We explore Cotonou with a morning city tour, during which we see various monuments, the red and white Catholic Cathedral and Dantokpa Market, known as the largest open-air market in West Africa.

After the city tour, we drive about 40 minutes to the small town of Abomey-Calavi, north of Cotonou. We board a wooden boat known as a pirogue at the town's marina, which takes us to the village of Ganvié, in the middle of the lake. Ganvié is built on stilts and is navigated by boat. The people originally moved to the middle of the lake about 400 years ago to escape slave traders who would not venture onto the lake. Accommodation in Cotonou.

Day 3

Grand-Popo is only about an hour's drive from the nearby city of Ouidah, which is particularly known for its slave trade. We start our tour of the city with a walking tour of the historic centre. We will see the Python Temple, the city's beautiful cathedral, "Brazilian houses" and the Museum of Zinsou Foundation. We walk to the sacred forest of Kpassé, with centuries-old trees and a temple of the Vodun religion. A visit to Ouidah is not complete without exploring the "slave road", the route along which slaves travelled on their way to the slave ships waiting on the Atlantic shore. The ships took the slaves out of Africa, and these people never saw their homelands again. Accommodation in Ouidah.

Day 4

Today we travel about an hour towards the west and arrive at the fishing village of Grand-Popo. We get to know Villa Karo, which is a Finnish-West African cultural center next to a long, wonderful beach. We go on a boat trip on the Mono River, where we get to know the mangrove vegetation and see local fishermen. We also visit the place known as Bouche du Roi, where the Mono River meets the Atlantic Ocean. We stay overnight in Grand-Popo.

Day 5

We head about 45 minutes northeast of Grand-Popo. There, on the shores of Lake Ahémé, lies the small village of Possotomè. Benin and neighboring Togo are the heartlands of the Vodun religion (also known as Voodoo). In Possotome, we get to know Vodun and see other ways of life, such as local fishing. We stay overnight in Possotomè.

Day 6

We return for a couple of hours back to Benin's largest city, Cotonou, where we started our journey. We will take you back to Cotonou airport.