Features
La Réunion
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La Réunion is home to one of the world’s most active and accessible volcanoes called the Piton de la Fournaise (“Peak of the Furnace”). It has the highest mountains in the Indian Ocean including three ancient volcanic calderas called “Les Cirques” which are popular with hikers and mountain climbers. The island is a magnet for French visitors looking for hiking, scuba diving, mountain climbing, surfing, fishing, and all manner of “surf and turf” recreational activities. There is also a plentiful supply of chic nightclubs and restaurants especially in St. Gilles Les Bains on the west coast.
French and a Réunionnaise version of Creole are the primary languages spoken on the island. My own fading high school French is poor but seems to have been good enough to get by. I would recommend that Anglophone travelers planning to visit La Réunion try to learn a little French before your trip. I found that English speakers there are very few and far between and you need to know a minimal amount of French to get by on your own.
Saint-Denis is the island’s largest city and is filled with beautiful Creole architecture including many elegant, if fading, mansions dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. Quaint streets are filled with chic shops, wonderful little cafés and restaurants, and boulangeries that could easily be in Paris. The seafood, fresh island produce, and local ice cream were extremely good especially in Saint-Denis and also in Saint-Pierre, the second largest city located in the south. Think ice cream made from fresh locally-grown vanilla pods, tropical fruits, and sugar, and milk from fat, happy, healthy-looking cows. The seafood everywhere was sensational, all local and freshly caught each morning.
I was impressed by the spectacular scenery, the large amount of impressive historic French and Creole architecture, and some remarkable botanic gardens in Saint-Denis and near Saint-Leu. Bad weather prevented me from seeing the Piton de la Fournaise volcano, which was disappointing after a long drive but the scenery along the way was quite interesting.
Both La Réunion and Mauritius share populations of great cultural diversity and are home to people of African, European, Indian, and Chinese heritage. There are large mosques in both Saint-Denis and Saint-Pierre with sizeable Islamic populations in both cities. La Réunion is also popular as a retirement destination for people from every part of France. Traffic is a serious problem on the island, with many French cars and trucks clogging city streets during rush hour in nearly every town.
For adventurous Anglophones, La Réunion is well worth a visit. I hope to return for an extended look, preferably on a trip that will allow me to examine the “plat du jour” at many of the tempting small restaurants I saw that warrant investigation if only in the name of “research”.
Resources:
St. Helena Island
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St. Helena is governed by the UK as an Overseas Territory with a local population of 4,000 friendly inhabitants known as “Saints” who take great pride in welcoming visitors to their island. Jamestown, the island’s largest town, looks like a provincial English village with many untouched historic buildings dating from Georgian times. St. Helena is perhaps most famous as the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was sent into exile after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815.
Longwood House, his home on St. Helena, is now a museum, owned and operated by the French government. (see photo below)
The island’s tourist infrastructure is very small, but adequate for the small number of tourists currently visiting the island (fewer than 1,000 annually). Accommodation consists of three small hotels, several guest houses, and self-catering flats and cottages. The Consulate Hotel is the island’s largest, with just18 rooms. There are fewer than ten restaurants or eating places on St. Helena and booking advance reservations for dinner is essential for most. Transportation options on the island include taxis, a local bus system, rental cars, and a charming 1929 Chevrolet open-top charabanc available for guided tours.
The Saints are warm and welcoming group, representing a very diverse ethnic and racial blend of settlers that came to the island from all over the world. St. Helena still has the charm and character of a remote British colonial outpost from long ago. Island life resembles that of an English village that time forgot, with virtually no crime, and where everyone knows everyone else. With few natural resources, the island is dependent on British government aid to maintain its standard of living. The airport is the key to long-range plans to reverse years of economic decline, halt outward migration, and provide local jobs for the “Saints”.
Improved access to the outside world brings both benefits and drawbacks. Once the airport opens, life on St. Helena will change forever. The Royal Mail Ship will be retired and with it, a passenger ship service reminiscent of old British liners to faraway destinations from long ago. The island’s infrastructure will have to grow to accommodate a large number of airport visitors and the St. Helena’s isolated charms will become a bit less isolated. (But still charming!) A visit to St. Helena before the airport is built is well worth the effort to experience this undiscovered jewel and to take a voyage on the last working Royal Mail Ship which is an adventure to be enjoyed by itself.
Resources:
St. Helena Tourism Website
St Helena Government Website
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The California Academy of Sciences was founded in 1853 as the first scientific institution in the western U.S. The Academy’s mission is to explore, explain and protect the natural world and is home to the Steinhart Aquarium, Morrison Planetarium, Kimball Natural History Museum, and world-class research and education programs.
Formerly housed on the same site in 11 separate buildings dating from 1912 to 1976, the Academy’s facilities suffered damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and were inadequate for future needs. In 1999, the Academy’s trustees embarked upon an ambitious fundraising campaign and architectural competition to replace the outdated and damaged structures with a design to house all of its facilities and operations in a single structure. A major design goal for the new building was for the structure to serve as an exhibit in itself, one that inspires visitors to sustain biodiversity and conserve natural resources.
Renzo Piano’s design was selected over competing designs submitted by other world-class architects. He envisioned the new building as part of Golden Gate Park itself, covered with a massive 2.5 acre living roof filled with 1.7 million native plants. His design not only blends in with the surroundings, it serves as a showcase for innovative energy-saving materials and technologies. The Academy closed its facilities in 2003 and moved into a temporary location at 875 Howard Street in San Francisco, operating there until the new building was ready in 2008.
The new building presents the Academy’s vast resources to visitors through innovative exhibits that blend live animals, specimens, and various flora and fauna with graphic panels, video displays, podcasts, and live programming.
Other major exhibits include the Steinhart Aquarium, the African Hall with live African penguins on display, Islands of Evolution, Philippine Coral Reef, the Northern California Coast exhibit, and the Naturalist Center that provides access the Academy’s library and research collections.
Resources:
Map of St. Helena Island
Map of Reunion Island (below):
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