Mauritius 1
CARANGO AMEL 54 #035
PETER and VICKY FORBES
Thu 20 Oct 2016 07:25
Mauritius is a fine island - has been Portuguese, Dutch, French and finally English. The English handed it back to local administration. The island now seems more French than English, all the newspapers are French and the town names are mainly french and all the people seem to speak French as the first language. However the market behind a fine iron fence has a magnificent crest over the top to Victoria Regina. The fruit market behind is magnificent  This is a very charming multiracial society with African, Asian, European, Indian and west Indian cultures all mixing into one country.We have visited a spectacular and very peaceful Botanic Garden and a very interesting Sugar Cane factory Museum.  and a cheeky local crested sparrow  The island economy was almost entirely sugar export but the largest earner now is tourism. Mauritius was called Île de France under French rule but in 1810 the British took the island and reverted it back to its original name of Mauritius. The British government of the day had declared that until Britain ruled Mauritius the Indian Empire was not safe. One imagines that the island was considered strategic to the Cape of Good Hope shipping route to India, |