Aapravasi Ghat, Caudan Waterfront, Blue Penny and the Citadel

The story of Port Louis begins on the water's edge, where 18th-century French East India Company warehouses and 19th-century British stone depots face the deep natural harbour, and ends high on the basalt ridge of Fort Adelaide overlooking the Champ de Mars.

Aapravasi Ghat (UNESCO World Heritage Site)

Directly beside the Place d'Armes Metro Express terminus on the harbour quay stands Aapravasi Ghat (Hindi for "Immigration Depot"), one of the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites on Mauritius. Following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, colonial authorities chose Mauritius as the test site for the "Great Experiment" of indentured labour. Between 1849 and 1923, nearly half a million men, women and children from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra disembarked from ships at this quay and climbed the fourteen worn black basalt steps into the processing sheds before being sent to sugar estates across the island. Almost two-thirds of modern Mauritius's population trace their ancestry through these steps. Before walking the stone ruins of the hospital block, kitchens and privies, step into the cool, air-conditioned Beekrumsing Ramlallah Interpretation Centre to examine ship logs, marriage certificates and archaeological finds.

Le Caudan Waterfront and the Blue Penny Museum

Five minutes' walk south along the marina brings you to Le Caudan Waterfront, where historic harbour granaries and meteorology buildings have been joined by boardwalk cafés, craft stalls and the photogenic canopy of Umbrella Alley. Inside Caudan sits the Blue Penny Museum, the finest historical and art museum in the country. Alongside Dutch and French East India Company charts, model Indiamen ships and Prosper d'Épinay's marble sculpture of Paul et Virginie, the upper room houses two of the most famous postage stamps in the world: the uncancelled 1847 One Penny Orange-Red and Two Pence Deep Blue "Post Office" Mauritius stamps, bought back for the nation by a consortium of Mauritian banks in 1993 and illuminated for ten minutes every hour.

Place d'Armes and Fort Adelaide (La Citadelle)

Walk inland up royal-palm-lined Place d'Armes past the 1738 French colonial Government House, the Natural History Museum (home to a reconstructed Mauritian dodo skeleton) and the shaded banyan trees of Jardin de la Compagnie. In late afternoon, take a short taxi ride or walk twenty minutes uphill from Chinatown to Fort Adelaide (La Citadelle), built by the British between 1834 and 1840 from dressed basalt blocks atop Petite Montagne, offering a complete panorama over Port Louis Harbour and the Moka peaks before returning to your hotel.