The Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden, which everyone calls Pamplemousses after the village it sits in, is the easiest half-day outing from Port Louis or Grand Baie. It began in 1735 as the vegetable garden of the French governor Mahé de La Bourdonnais, and Pierre Poivre turned it into a botanical and spice garden from the late 1760s. It covers around 37 hectares. You do not need to see all of it: two hours, an official guide for the first one and an early start is the way to do it.
Tickets and hours
- Open every day, 8:30 to 17:30, public holidays included. It closes only for official VIP visits.
- Foreign visitors aged 5 and over: 300 rupees. Under 5: free. Foreign residence-permit holders pay the local rate of 25 rupees.
- Official guide: 75 rupees a person over 12, less per head for bigger groups, paid at the end of the tour. Children 12 and under go free.
- Golf cart with driver, 45 minutes, up to three people: 300 rupees per adult and 100 rupees per child aged 5 to 12.
Those are the garden's own published rates. Older guides quoting 200 rupees are out of date.
Take the guide
The official guides wait at the gate, and a tour takes about an hour. It is the best 75 rupees you will spend here: the garden is big, the labels are few, and a guide takes you straight to the spice trees and rare palms you would otherwise walk past. Then use the second hour to go back to whatever you liked.
What to see
- The giant water lily pond. The garden's signature: a long pond covered in Victoria lily pads well over a metre across, with upturned rims. The flowers open at dusk, so by day you mostly see the pads.
- The palms. Around 85 varieties, including the talipot palm, which flowers once after decades and then dies.
- The Château de Mon Plaisir. The colonial house in the middle of the garden, which gave the estate its first name.
- The samadhi. Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, the first prime minister of independent Mauritius, was cremated here in 1985, and Sir Anerood Jugnauth in 2021.
- The main gate. Wrought iron, from 1868, worth a look on the way in.
- Giant tortoises and deer in enclosures near the entrance. Fine for children, not the reason to come.
When to go
Go at opening. At 8:30 the garden is cooler and quieter, and you are round the lily pond before the heat and the tour groups. Bring mosquito repellent for the shaded paths by the water.
Getting there
Pamplemousses is about 10 kilometres north of Port Louis. Buses from Port Louis towards Pamplemousses run via Terre Rouge and drop you on the main road, a 10 to 15 minute walk from the gate. By car or taxi there is parking in front of the garden. From Grand Baie it is about 20 minutes by car and the natural stop on the way into the capital.
Make it a morning
L'Aventure du Sucre, the sugar museum in an old factory at Beau Plan, is a few minutes away and fills the rest of the morning; the ticket includes a tasting of sugars and rums at the end. Then head into Port Louis for lunch: see Port Louis street food.
