Cruising from Singapore round Africa 2016: 1/4/2016 Reunion Island

This morning we woke up already in the port, actually called Le Port on Reunion Island and what a beautiful place it is. It's east of Madagascar, south of Mauritius. It's also hot, 30C and very sunny with clear blue skies, this is getting to be a bit of a habit!. We had a lazy morning on the ship enjoying the mixture of very green and volcanic scenery, and the heat, then the afternoon excursion to St Denis, (including a packed lunch from "Grab and Go" on the Lido Deck.)

I loved this, especially the slightly whacky, alternative tour guide, Jean-Luc. He told us he was born in Paris, worked originally for IBM, retired and moved to Reunion, and has never looked back. He was really friendly, but also very wise. He welcomed us to Europe, and to France. Some of us had already had texts from our phone providers with promises of cheap calls and texts at Eurpoean rates, so that bit wasn't much of a surprise. But just how "French" St Denis is really was a surprise. Cafe's, Restaurants, shops, and the general look and feel of the streets, the offices and monuments were all very clearly European. We had history, geography and politics lessons throughout the afternoon, all delivered with a lovely sense of humour, all in all one of the best shore tours we've ever had. The history included the plundering, destruction, and the slavery - the dutch the French and the British, but at this point he said very philosophically that we can't judge, only learn from the mistakes of the past to make a better future. I still do feel a sense of ancestral shame, Always will. There was quite a lot of walking between the highlights - the picnic lunch stop, the museum, state buildings, craft market, slavery abolition monument, botanical gardens, canons and coach.