Cemeteries to visit Réunion

Built facing the ocean in 1780, the marine cemetery is home to many characters who have marked the history of the island: the Desbassayns family, the poets Leconte De Lisle and Eugène Dayot or unfortunate Breton sailors, tragically shipwrecked in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The best time to visit this place of contemplation is undoubtedly late afternoon, when the sun sets over the magnificent bay of Saint-Paul. Ask the city's architecture and heritage animator for information on visits.

At the corner of rue Luc-Lorion and the waterfront, west of the city, this cemetery is visited especially for the tomb of the famous Sitarane who fascinates the curious. But you can also go and have a look at the sumptuous Chinese tombs, or the rich mausoleums of the great Reunionese families. Muslims are buried in a small, more sober cemetery, in the shade of the frangipani trees, on the other side of rue Lorion. This is a walk that says a lot about the relationship each of these religions has with death.

Inaugurated in 1992, it symbolically sketches the shape of a tree on 7 ha. Its numerous alleys are the branches that lead to the leaf areas, intended for graves, dotted with frangipani, pomegranate, ylang-ylang and palm trees. In order to see the contours of this area, you have to climb aboard a microlight (the companies fly over it). Beware, drones are forbidden. A real green space, it does not resemble its ancestor, the cemetery of the Plague, which was reserved for the victims of the epidemic.