March 1 - Réunion Island

Réunion is a small department of France (sort of like a state but has some autonomy).  Our local tour guide kept referring to Réunion as being “in Europe”.  The predominant language is French and the Euro is the currency.  So we seem to be back in Europe.

Réunion is a much younger volcanic island than Mauritius and consequently is much more rugged (less time for erosion to wear down the mountains).  So it is very green and lush and very mountainous.  It reminded us of Hawaii.

The main coastal road that we took for the tour is subject to rock slides from the steep cliffs and also to major flooding during cyclones.  So they are in the process of building a major new raised road out a ways into the ocean.  It is out of the reach of the cliff slides and high enough that the storm waves should not be able to sweep over the roadway.

Our first top on the tour was a vanilla plantation.  We had visited one in Hawaii but this one seemed a lot bigger.  We were offered vanilla flavored coffee and vanilla rum punch.  Just like the vanilla plantation in Hawaii they assume that everything is better with vanilla (and they are probably right).

Then we were off on a drive through the Mat River valley.  The scenery was beautiful and the mountains rugged and green.  

There were a lot of ribbon falls along the way.

We went through the small town of Salazie but didn’t get to stop.

We stopped for a view of the valleys and mountains at the Hell-Bourg viewpoint.  The views were great…

and there was a Datura tree near the parking lot.  There were a lot of them all along the drive.

We had a nice stop in the town of Hell-Bourg

where many of the houses...

and shops

were in the Creole style - metal roofs, a bit of Victorian trim, shutters and all things quaint .

Our friend Dave from Hawaii

The area had a lovely war memorial garden with fountain...

and a lot of flowers (after all, we are in the tropics).

Lunch was at a hotel restaurant with great views of the valley below.  

Then it was the long drive back to St. Denis where we stopped for a walk down a main street...

and through the Grand Marche (Grand Market), with lots of local products.

We had good views of the island as we sailed away this evening.