History
Museums
Indenture, stamps, the dodo, sugar. Hours move — verify the same morning. A weekday in Port Louis beats a Sunday.
01 · UNESCO · indenture
Aapravasi Ghat
The depot. Start here if you want the modern population of Mauritius to make sense. Compact, serious, weekday.
02 · Caudan · 1847 stamps
Blue Penny Museum
The Blue and Red ‘Post Office’ Mauritius stamps of 1847, plus island history interpretation. A philatelist pilgrimage and a rainy-capital hour for everyone else. Check current display notices — the objects are that famous.
03 · The dodo conversation
Natural History Museum, Port Louis
Mauritius is the dodo’s only known home. What you will see is reconstruction and context, not a complete original skeleton (none survives complete). That is still the right room for children and for adults who think the bird is only a cartoon.
04 · South-east · colonial house
National History Museum, Mahebourg
Dutch–French–British layers in an 18th-century mansion, with the lagoon outside. Pair with Mahebourg waterfront and Blue Bay, not with a north-coast hotel checkout the same afternoon.
05 · North · sugar, rum, labour
L’Aventure du Sucre
A former mill that explains why the landscape looks like cane. Taste rooms exist; the history of labour is the actual exhibit. Good family indoor hour when the coast is too bright.