Smart Travels: Le Tampon

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Sunday, 1 March 2015

Cité du volcan museum

The Cité du Volcan museum re-opened in August 2014 after several years of refurbishments. It tells you everything you need to know about Reunion's Piton de la Fournaise in particular, and volcanoes in general.

Exterior of the Cité du Volcan

It's located in Bourg-Murat, the small town where most of the eating and accommodation options are to be found nearest the volcano.

Exterior of the Cité du Volcan

Initially opened in November 1992, its existence is largely due to the French volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, who had studied La Fournaise closely. They both died in a pyroclastic flow in Japan in 1991.

Exterior of the Cité du Volcan

It used to be known as the Maison du Volcan until 2011 when it closed for refurbishment. It reopened on August 5th 2014.

multi-sensory lava tunnel, entrance to the Cité du volcan

Covering 6200m2, the new museum includes a 4D cinema, a 270°C auditorium screen, and has innovative and interactive features such as holographic projections, augmented reality, wide 'multitouch' surfaces, and audio-visual environments.

one of the exhibition rooms

In a bathyscaphe the colonisation of underwater lava flows is explained, including how a lava flow becomes a coral reef and the birth of living organisms.

one of the exhibition rooms

part of the Piton de la Fournaise timeline

A large part of the exhibition lets you explore Reunion island and its geological and geographical features, including the island's birth, more than 3 million years, up until the present day.

a copy of the first-ever map of Reunion

Other parts let you seen the human effect the volcano has had on the island, and explores the legends surrounding it.

exhibition room about the Volcano observatory

The Cité du Volcan is one of four museums operated by the Regional Museums of Reunion group. The others are Kelonia, Stella Matutina and the MADOI.

exhibition room about the Volcano observatory

The museum is open every day (apart from Christmas Day, New Year's Day and May 1st) from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. The ticket office closes at 4:45 pm.

screen showing pictures of the most recent eruption.

Museum website (in French)

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Saturday, 29 March 2014

Some tasteless humour

The above photo was featured in the The Telegraph's Sign Language special photo gallery on toilet humour with the caption 'The world is your urinal'. 'Sign Language' is a picture gallery where readers send in amusing photos of strange signs and bizarre translations in the UK and around the world which are published each week. Pisse en l'air is a small waterfall on Reunion, in the cirque (natural amphitheatre) of Salazie, but ironically it's not the waterfall shown, which is actually 640m-high Cascade Blanche. Pisse en l'air literally means 'piss in the air' and it is another smaller waterfall renowned for falling from a cliff onto the road - and onto your car if you happen to be driving by underneath (make sure you keep your car windows closed!).

Something else that frequently amuses non-French visitors to Reunion is Le Tampon - this is the name of a town and municipality in the south of the island, not far from the volcano.

Le Tampon logo

While 'tampon' only has one meaning in English, in French it has several meanings, including 'buffer' or 'stamp', however in this particular case no one is exactly sure of the town name's origin. There are several theories:

- Tampony is a Malagasy word which means 'viewpoint', or 'summit that can be seen from afar';

- it could come from tampon de combat, or 'shot plug', a type of stopper used to seal a projectile hole in a ship's hull during combat, and/or tampon d'écubier, which was a 'hawse-plug' or 'buckler' (a block used to stop up a hawse hole at sea);

- documents dating from 1727 mention a small river gully known as the Ravine du Tampon, so known because a tampon de hublot, or 'porthole stopper', had been placed there as a landmark.

Keeping with the theme of toilet humour, I saw this sign in the lavatory on an Air Koryo flight when I was flying back to Beijing from Pyongyang (it also featured in The Telegraph’s ‘Sign Language’ photo gallery):

Hips don't fly

Still on matters of taste, what about this on a Delhi restaurant drinks menu:

Name your poison - toxic or tonic?

Back in Reunion a restaurant in Saint Denis has these offerings on its menu:

Drop in for dinner?

For those that don’t speak French the Crotin [sic] de Chèvre Chaud should be ‘Warm Goat’s Cheese’ in English and not ‘dung’! (These photos were also featured in The Telegraph’s ‘Sign Language’ ‘Best of January 2014′ photo gallery).

Here Souris [d'agneau] (knuckle of lamb) has been translated literally as ‘mouse’:

Puts a ro-dent in your appetite?

Things have improved however, as a few years ago filet was translated thoughout as ‘net’ instead of ‘fillet’, and cabot de fond (a type of fish) was translated as ‘dog bottom’!

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