Museums in Mauritius
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Colonial Houses, the Dodo and the Blue Penny
Here is the list of 14 Museums in Mauritius
1. Blue Penny Museum
Blue Penny Museum is a famous stamp museum located in Port Louis. It is named after the famous 1847 2-pence Blue Penny Stamp, engraved for Mauritian post offices by Joseph Osmond back in the 1800s. The museum also houses an enviable collection of old marine maps used by sailors back in the past, paintings from colonial times, and old engravings, inscriptions and sculptures.
2. Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum in Port Louis is a haven for naturalists as it houses a wide array of exhibits illustrating Mauritius' diverse fauna and aquatic life. The entire museum is segregated into four galleries. The first gallery houses exhibits of the countless bird species including several endangered ones.
3. Martello Tower Museum
The Martello Tower Museum is a fortress built during British rule, which has been converted into a museum to educate visitors about life during the colonial reign. The main highlight is the two fixed guns on the roof, which could once take a cross-shot across the entirety of the bay.
4. Robert Edward Hart Museum
This museum, housed inside a bungalow built entirely out of coral called La Nef, was the house of Mauritian poet Robert Edward Hart. There are four rooms inside the museum - two bedrooms, one bathroom and an office cum drawing-room. On display are several of Hart's original letters, speeches, plays, poetry, his violin, spectacles, awards and books.
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5. Frederik Hendrik Museum
Frederik Hendrik museum is located in Vieux Grand Port. It is named after the stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, who was in office from 1625 to 1647. The museum complex, surrounded by a lush tropical garden, contains artefacts found during archaeological excavations.
6. SSR Memorial Centre For Culture
Devoted to the memory of Mauritius' first prime minister Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, this museum houses his personal belongings. In addition, several photographs documenting his life and decisions as a national leader are hung on the walls, which will transport you to post-independence Mauritius. This museum is built in the house where Seewoosagur Ramgoolam used to practise medicine.
7. Mauritius Photography Museum
The brainchild of Mr Tristan Bréville, a passionate photographer, the Mauritius Photography Museum houses a wide range of artefacts documenting the early days of Mauritian photography and cinematography. The exhibits are as old as the 1800s and are a treasure trove of old camera and photograph prints, including daguerreotypes (the forerunner of photographs) produced in 1840.
8. Chateau de Labourdonnais, Mauritius
Built back in the 1800s, the Château de Labourdonnais is a grand Creole mansion once owned by Christian Wiehe and his family and converted into a museum. Guided tours of the building start with visits to the house's different rooms and move on to the old orchards and lush green gardens.
9. China Heritage Museum
This museum in Remy Ollier Street houses a vast collection of objects illuminating the Chinese immigration in Mauritius, such as photographs, models of the Chinatown district, old Chinese scales for weighing articles, old Chinese newspapers, and calendars and printing equipment.
10. L'Aventure du Sucre
L'Aventure du Sucre meaning 'Sugar Adventure' in English is a sugar museum located in the beautiful Pamplemousses village. A tour of this sugar museum takes you through the old Beau Plan Sugar Factory which used to operate from the 18th to 20th century. It displays a vast array of arts that depicts the journey of sugar dating back from the 15th century to the contemporary day.
11. Eureka House
Eureka House is a 19th-century Creole-style house built in 1830 on the banks of the Mauritian river Moka. It is one of the island’s most visited historical sites. The interior decorations and furniture are well maintained along with the mahogany and ebony antiques, old ceramics and beautifully painted chinaware, photographs of daily life and books.
12. Curious Corner of Chamarel
Located in south-western Mauritius, the Curious Corner of Chamarel is the only one of its kind museum in Mauritius. It is a house full of mysteries, illusions, mind games and various other activities meant to excite the curious minds of the people. It is a world of optical illusions, and puzzles with 40 exhibits like a mirror maze, upside-down room, Ames room and more.
13. World of Seashells
With more than 1800 species of 8000 seashells in 70 display cabinets, World of Seashells is located on the first floor of Chateau de Bel Ombre. Eric Le Court, the founder and collector of this enchanting museum, has gathered shells from Mauritius and different parts of the world and assembled an impressive collection that gives us a chance to explore the aquatic riches!
14. Mauritius Postal Museum
The Mauritius Post opened the Mauritius Postal Museum in 1995 which exhibits various stamps and miscellaneous articles from all over the world. There are four rooms inside the museum with different displays including a temporary exhibition area and a philatelic gallery.
Two museums here hold things you cannot see anywhere else. The Natural History Museum in Port Louis has a reconstructed dodo skeleton, the bird having been endemic to Mauritius and extinct within about a century of the Dutch arriving. A few minutes away at the Caudan Waterfront, the Blue Penny Museum holds original examples of the 1847 Post Office one penny and two pence, among the rarest stamps in the world, displayed under dimmed light on a timer to protect them. Beyond those, the pattern is colonial houses opened to the public: Eureka House at Moka with its 109 doors, Chateau de Labourdonnais in the north with its orchards and rum, and L'Aventure du Sucre at Pamplemousses, a converted sugar factory that tells the story of the crop and the indentured labour that worked it better than anywhere else on the island. Most are closed on Mondays or Sundays and shut by mid-afternoon, so check before travelling across. See also cities in Mauritius, churches in Mauritius and islands in Mauritius.
This post was published by Satyam Saxena
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FAQs on Museums in Mauritius
Where can you see a dodo in Mauritius?
The Natural History Museum in Port Louis, which displays a reconstructed dodo skeleton assembled from bones found in the Mare aux Songes marsh. No complete original specimen survives anywhere in the world, so every dodo on display is a composite or a cast.
What is the Blue Penny Museum?
A small museum at the Caudan Waterfront in Port Louis built around the 1847 Post Office one penny and two pence stamps, two of the rarest in existence. They are kept in a darkened case and lit only for a few minutes at a time, so time your visit to the display schedule.
Which museum explains the island's sugar history?
L'Aventure du Sucre at Pamplemousses, set in a former factory with the original machinery still in place. It covers the plantation economy, slavery and the indentured labour that followed, and finishes with a tasting of unrefined sugars and rum.
Are there colonial houses open to visitors?
Several. Eureka House at Moka is the best known, a Creole mansion with 109 doors and a garden with waterfalls. Chateau de Labourdonnais in the north is a restored 1850s mansion with orchards and a rum distillery, and both take a couple of hours.
Are Mauritian museums open every day?
No, and this catches people out. Many close on Mondays, some on Sundays, and most shut by four in the afternoon, earlier on Saturdays. Public holidays are unpredictable. Check opening times before crossing the island for one.
Which museums suit children?
The Curious Corner of Chamarel, an optical-illusion museum in the south, and the World of Seashells nearby. L'Aventure du Sucre works for older children, and the Natural History Museum is short enough to hold attention.
