The Botanic Gardens and L'Aventure du Sucre

Andy in front of a pond of water lilies at the Botanic Gardens.
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Today we took the bus from Pereybere to the Pamplemousses area (19 rupees each) to visit the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Gardens and L'Aventure du Sucre.  We don't like mouthfuls so we called them the botanic gardens, and the sugar museum.  The bus drop-off was a little confusing (you are dropped on the side of the road, no garden in sight, and the bus driver waved vaguely to the left when we asked which way to go) but luckily we are intelligent girls and the giant white gates and large trees soon gave it away.  The gardens are a lovely place to visit on a hot day when you are perhaps too sunburned to want to stand in full sun - I was very happy to walk from shady path to shady path and admire the many pools with their lily pads and interesting flowers.  We liked to look at all the interesting and large tropical trees, even if we weren't sure what we were looking at.  Usually you can buy a guide but the book huts were closed.  You may also hire an actual guide who will walk you around the gardens, but we are too anti-social for anything like that.  So we enjoyed our strolls and our camera-happy ways - we even saw giant tortoises!

Huge lily pads at the SSR Botanic Gardens in Pamplemousses.
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Next we walked to L'Aventure du Sucre, a very large and interesting museum that teaches you a lot about both sugar and it's history of being grown in Mauritius, as well as Mauritian history in general.  Unfortunately, the museum is not air conditioned, so we went through it perhaps a little quicker than we would have, had it been a comfortable temperature.  Still, I recommend leaving plenty of time for your visit!