Port Louis travel guide

Mauritius · Top sights · trending spots

Mark Twain reported being told that heaven was copied from Mauritius, and repeated it. A barrier reef rings almost the whole island, so the water inside is flat, warm and the colour of the brochures.

Chamarel has dunes of earth in seven colours from weathered basalt. Le Morne, the basalt peak where escaped slaves hid, is World Heritage, and the sandbanks off it create the underwater waterfall illusion. Pamplemousses garden grows water lilies the size of tables.

Search flights for these datesChecking fares…

Next long-break window · based on public holidays in United States11.26 – 11.291 leave → 4 daysPlan this trip

Top 10 sights in Port Louis

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

© Lonelyplanet · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden
A botanical garden laid out from 1770 by the French administrator Pierre Poivre, who smuggled nutmeg and clove seedlings past the Dutch to break their monopoly. Its pond of giant Amazon waterlilies, leaves two metres across, is the set piece.
Tiqets Klook
Blue Penny Museum
A museum at the Caudan waterfront holding the 1847 Post Office Mauritius stamps — a one penny and a two pence, among the rarest in the world, bought back for the island by a banking consortium. They are shown for ten minutes at a time under dimmed light to protect the ink.
Tiqets Klook
St. Louis Cathedral, Port-Louis
The Catholic cathedral of Port Louis, the fourth church on the site — cyclones took the earlier ones — with the present building dating from 1932. Catholics are the largest Christian group on an island that is half Hindu.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Mauritius Postal Museum
A philatelic museum in the old post office by the Port Louis waterfront, opened in 1995. Its rooms hold the island's postal history and the story of the Post Office Mauritius stamps of 1847, among the rarest in the world.
Tiqets Klook
© Coolth · CC BY-SA 3.0
Curepipe Botanic Gardens
The second largest botanical garden in Mauritius, on the cool central plateau. It holds the last surviving specimen of a palm found nowhere else on earth, which cannot reproduce and has been called the loneliest tree in the world.
Tiqets Klook
© franek2 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Jummah Mosque
A mosque of the 1850s in the middle of Port Louis, combining Indian carving, Creole timber verandas and Islamic form in one courtyard. The marble tomb of Jamal Shah, a saint from Kutch, stands beside it, and the doors are of Indian teak.
Tiqets Klook
© Toutaitanous 2 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Maheswarnath Mandir
The largest Hindu temple in Mauritius, at Triolet, founded in 1888 by a pandit from Calcutta and dedicated to Shiva. Indentured labourers and their descendants built it in stages as the community grew.
Tiqets Klook
Intercontinental Slavery Museum
A museum in Port Louis that opened in 2023 in a military hospital of 1740, covering slavery and the indentured labour that replaced it. Mauritius was a plantation colony first French and then British, and most of its people descend from one system or the other.
Tiqets Klook
Port Louis Photography Museum
A photography museum and archive on Rue du Vieux Conseil in Port Louis, built on a private collection of images and equipment recording the island since the nineteenth century.
Tiqets Klook
Saint François d‘Assise
A Catholic church in Mauritius and the third oldest on the island, built in the eighteenth century in coral stone. It belongs to the diocese of Port Louis and still serves its parish.
Tiqets Klook

Popular tickets & tours in Port Louis

Live products and prices are provided directly by Klook.

Tickets & attractions

Day tours

Experiences

Find dates you can go →

Top 10 sights in Port Louis

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden

A botanical garden laid out from 1770 by the French administrator Pierre Poivre, who smuggled nutmeg and clove seedlings past the Dutch to break their monopoly. Its pond of giant Amazon waterlilies, leaves two metres across, is the set piece.

Tiqets

Klook

Blue Penny Museum

A museum at the Caudan waterfront holding the 1847 Post Office Mauritius stamps — a one penny and a two pence, among the rarest in the world, bought back for the island by a banking consortium. They are shown for ten minutes at a time under dimmed light to protect the ink.

Tiqets

Klook

St. Louis Cathedral, Port-Louis

The Catholic cathedral of Port Louis, the fourth church on the site — cyclones took the earlier ones — with the present building dating from 1932. Catholics are the largest Christian group on an island that is half Hindu.

Tiqets

Klook

Mauritius Postal Museum

A philatelic museum in the old post office by the Port Louis waterfront, opened in 1995. Its rooms hold the island's postal history and the story of the Post Office Mauritius stamps of 1847, among the rarest in the world.

Tiqets

Klook

Curepipe Botanic Gardens

The second largest botanical garden in Mauritius, on the cool central plateau. It holds the last surviving specimen of a palm found nowhere else on earth, which cannot reproduce and has been called the loneliest tree in the world.

Tiqets

Klook

Jummah Mosque

A mosque of the 1850s in the middle of Port Louis, combining Indian carving, Creole timber verandas and Islamic form in one courtyard. The marble tomb of Jamal Shah, a saint from Kutch, stands beside it, and the doors are of Indian teak.

Tiqets

Klook

Maheswarnath Mandir

The largest Hindu temple in Mauritius, at Triolet, founded in 1888 by a pandit from Calcutta and dedicated to Shiva. Indentured labourers and their descendants built it in stages as the community grew.

Tiqets

Klook

Intercontinental Slavery Museum

A museum in Port Louis that opened in 2023 in a military hospital of 1740, covering slavery and the indentured labour that replaced it. Mauritius was a plantation colony first French and then British, and most of its people descend from one system or the other.

Tiqets

Klook

Port Louis Photography Museum

A photography museum and archive on Rue du Vieux Conseil in Port Louis, built on a private collection of images and equipment recording the island since the nineteenth century.

Tiqets

Klook

Saint François d‘Assise

A Catholic church in Mauritius and the third oldest on the island, built in the eighteenth century in coral stone. It belongs to the diocese of Port Louis and still serves its parish.

Tiqets

Klook