Monuments to visit Noumea

In the blue-roofed halls overlooking the marina of Port Moselle, the archipelago's largest marina, flowers, fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, meat (deer sausage!), pastries and souvenirs are displayed. While tourists and locals mingle every day, the market is a big hit on weekends! You can have breakfast at the kiosk inside the halls. You can go there from 6am to have your coffee or to find a snack to take away for lunch. Be careful, Caledonians are early risers and from 11am the stalls are empty.

Lucien Bernheim, a mining owner, donated money to the colonial administration in 1901 for the construction of a library. Built on the colonial model of the time, in the image of the pavilions of the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, the building is one of the most eloquent architectural testimonies of Nouméa. Within its walls are grouped 700,000 volumes, a large part of which deals with New Caledonia and the Pacific. Researchers also have at their disposal the collection of all the public newspapers of the territory.

This monument, erected in 1992, commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the first 20,000 American soldiers in Nouméa on March 12, 1942. Nearly a million of their compatriots followed them and transited on the Rock, so that New Caledonia constituted one of the strategic bases of the American army during the Pacific War against Japan, particularly during the Battle of the Coral Sea. It can be found near the market and Port-Moselle. A solemn pause during your visit, but unfortunately not very well highlighted.