On the island of Mauritius there are still half a dozen elegant colonial-era residences, which were once the heart of the plantations, inhabited by the rich families of the landowners, which outline an ideal itinerary of sweet creole life. First stop at Chateau de Labourdonnais http://unchateaudanslanature.com/, perhaps the most famous of the ancient Maurtian residences, which as you can guess from the name is the most sumptuous of all, with an architecture reminiscent of the American "Via con Vento" style.
Recently restored, it is now open to the public with a tour that also includes the extensive gardens and the adjacent Rhumerie, where you can taste the rhum of the house. What if the visit extends until lunchtime? No problem, inside the estate there is also a good restaurant, La Table du Chateau, managed – think a bit – by an Italian, Fabio de Poli, who offers a cuisine of research of ancient recipes Mauriziane creoles reinterpreted, mainly based on fish: to try!
Before continuing south, where the other creole houses are located, a short distance from here is worth a stop also the Pamplemousses Botanical Garden, which having been opened in the 1700s is among the oldest in the world with over 500 species of exotic plants: it walks in the shade of acacias, several species of palm trees, mangroves, even if it is better to avoid the hottest hours of the day and to have little insects.
If you do not understand tropical plants and flowers, you should take a guided tour, which will reveal amazing details and anecdotes on the local flora. The route takes about an hour and ends at the pond of giant nymphs and lotus flowers, the main attractions of the park.
A magnificent park well-kept with tropical plants and flowers also surrounds Eureka http://www.maisoneureka.com/, a typical nineteenth-century maison créole that rises south of Port-Louis, the capital. Unlike Chateau de Labourdonnais, there is an intimate and familiar atmosphere, as if the owners had to come back from one moment to another: in the dining room the table is equipped with porcelain dishes and under the porch there are still the original midollino furnishings.
Continuing south we reach the Plantation de Saint Aubin www.rhumsaintaubin.com, the last colonial residence of our itinerary, today transformed into a specialized restaurant, ça va sans dire, in creola cuisine. Not by chance we have a great vanilla chicken, which judging by the expressions of my travel companions in the photo below, was definitely appreciated.
Vanilla that, to punctualize, is produced inside the estate itself, where the sugar cane is grown from the beginning of the 1800s. In fact Saint Aubin is known throughout the island and above all for its rhum, but of this I will talk to you in the next post.
