Anse Source d'Argent is a beach on the island of La Digue in the Seychelles, walled and divided by boulders of pink granite the size of houses, and it stands on the only islands in the middle of an ocean that are made of granite rather than coral or lava. The rock is 750 million years old, a leftover piece of the continent that once joined India and Africa, and it did not arrive here as loose stones: the boulders are bedrock, rounded in place as thin shells of rock peeled off their surface over ages, and worn smooth as glass by wind and water. The beach is really a chain of small coves, each one closed off by the granite, so that you wade or squeeze from one to the next with white sand underfoot, clear shallow water in front and a wall of pink stone behind. Palms lean out over the sand, and the reef offshore keeps the water calm and shallow for a long way out.
Low tide is the best of it: the water pulls back and leaves a wide sheet of wet sand that reflects the boulders whole, doubling the pink granite against the sky, which is why this may be the most photographed beach on Earth. The beach faces the western horizon, and at sunset the granite goes from pink to orange to red before the light fails. The only way in is on foot or by bicycle through L'Union Estate, an old plantation: a sandy track past a colonial house, a working copra mill where coconuts are still pressed, and a pen of Aldabra giant tortoises heavy enough to lean on, which follow you for a scratch on the neck. The estate once grew vanilla too, an orchid whose flowers open for barely a day and, outside Mexico, set no pods unless a person pollinates each one by hand. La Digue has almost no cars, so you arrive at the beach the way the island moves, on a bicycle, and leave it the same way with sand on the pedals.