Welcome to Reunion

The flight was quite unspectacular. A little turbulence - nothing more. What I have to say is that Lufthansa could learn a thing or two from their service and food.

But an 11-hour flight is still an 11-hour flight, and no amount of good food, good service, and plenty of German-dubbed films, blankets and pillows can change that. But we survived that too (albeit with calluses on our asses...).

Reunion

Facts: The island of La Réunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, is known for its volcanic, rainforest-covered interior, coral reefs and beaches. The island's landmark is the Piton de la Fournaise, a 2,632 m high, active volcano.

Capital: Saint Denis. The island has a population of around 880,000.

Réunion was uninhabited until the middle of the 17th century. In 1640, French people landed on the island and declared it a French possession in the name of King Louis XIII: the king was from the noble Bourbon family and the island was therefore named Île Bourbon (Bourbon Island). During the French colonization, French settlers came to the island (1665), bringing slaves from Madagascar, East Africa and India to work on plantations (Bourbon vanilla, sugar cane). On March 19, 1793, the island was renamed La Réunion during the French Revolution. When slavery ended on Réunion in 1848, around 60,000 free slaves were given the same status as the 35,000 citizens who had been citizens until then. Cheap labor for agriculture was now recruited from India, Africa and China.

The most important economic sector is still agriculture, especially the production of cane sugar and rum, as well as various fruits such as bananas, pineapples, lychees and vanilla. However, La Réunion is economically heavily dependent on its mother country France and the EU. (Source Wikipedia)

It's a pleasant 25 degrees here, it's winter on Reunion. After a short walk to the luggage carousel and what felt like an eternity until the suitcases finally arrived, we reached the rental car station. Attentive readers may remember our last vacation in Hawaii and the hours of waiting for a rental car. It was much quicker here. We went to the counter and 15 minutes later we were at the car. That was at 9:25. At 11:20 we left the lot without the correct insurance documents (wrong license plate on the policy and insurance green card). Apparently the Europecar computer couldn't download and print the documents (I always say the 80 cm before that - but oh well). Now we couldn't bring our suitcases to the accommodation in advance (it was agreed to be at 10 a.m., after that our landlords went shopping) and, totally exhausted, had to bridge the time with breakfast and shopping until 3 p.m.

Our accommodation is a true dream.

We end the day with a great 3-course dinner and look forward to a great vacation.

PS: here too there is the “one bed sheet philosophy”, terrible….