Cascade Niagra

A lot less water than its namesake in North America, and probably far more accessible. There is a small car park, and the stony beach at the bottom starts within a few steps off the tarmac. Not as scenic as the others though.

Bassin la Mer

About 1.5 km from the parking at Bassin la Paix, and further upstream is Bassin la Mer. It's a fairly easy walk, except for the lack of shade for most of the walk. The sign posting at the end is also a bit iffy - but you get a bigger pool and a lot more space.

There are a few more rapids and pools along the way, and it is possible to go down to at least a couple of them. We didn't go down, but the views were spectacular none the less.

Bassin la Paix

There are numerous photos of reunion with waterfalls with clear pools below, surrounded by lush jungle. After consultation with the waiter at the hotel, we discovered there are a few near St Andre, back towards the coast from Hell Bourg. 

Bassin la Paix is probably the easiest to access, well sign posted from the high way between St Adre and St Benoit. The car park was busy, but it is summer and peak season right now. From the car park, it's over a short bridge and a short hike with a very steep stairwell down to the pool. From the bridge, the rapids are well worth watching, and we were just a bit late in seeing a group finishing white water rafting.

The pool is very much a photo story of tropical paradise - water streaming down a waterfall with crystal clear, and cold, pool. The Lonely Planet stated that swimming was not allowed here - perhaps due to the current - although there were a few swimmers close to the edge.

Église Notre Dame de l'Assomption, Salazie

It is an imposing church for a fairly small town/village. Although it is quite a modern construction (Google search suggests construction started in 1939), the style is representative of an earlier era. The interior is fairly plain, as is the art on the walls - but the stained glass windows are awesome, and well worth a stop en route.

Cascade du Voile de la Mariée (Bridal Veil Falls)

Spectacular set of water falls that are visible from both the roads to Grand Ilet and Hell Bourg, and makes the winding downhill from Grand Ilet even more enticing. There is a small place to park and it is possible to hike to the waterfalls (I assume from Salazie).

Hell Bourg's Old Thermal Baths

The village of Hell Bourg started as a spa destination for the rich and famous, with a natural hot spring. Over time, the hot springs lost its mojo, and then a few failed attempts to fix and a cyclone caused landslide ended the baths permanently. Now the village is the centre for hiking and related activities and the ruins of the old baths are one more addition on the tourist stop. It's a short hike from the main village street, and can be accessed as a loop with the road around Hell Bourg.

3 Cascades

Hell-Bourg is one of the key villages along the hiking routes on Reunion, so there are a number of options for hikes ranging from under an hour all the way to full day hikes (and off course the multi day hikes). The 3 Cascades (waterfall) hike was labelled as a short, easy 90 minute return hike by the tourist office. The 90 minutes was spot on, but it was hardly easy - while not technical, the hike has a very steep ascent from the start point with very short respites all the way to the waterfall. The route itself is mostly in the shade, surrounded by large bamboo.

You can hear the waterfalls before you see them, with the main trail ending rather abruptly by a small shrine. There is a small pool, with cold fresh water - but not more than just wetting your feet. At the far end, is the main waterfall - spectacularly set against the lush vegetation. Just to the left, is a steep drop to an amazing looking pool - though I could see now way down.

We met an older French couple on the trail, who spoke a bit of English, and had a small printout of the trail. Just before the end of the trail is a small detour by a bamboo grove and behind a fence, there is a short lookout by a dam, providing a better view of the main falls. Without this information, I don't think I would have found it - haven't seen it written elsewhere in English!

The return is uneventful, although the steepness of the climb is equally difficult to go down. There are great views of Hell Bourg once you clear the trees.

Driving in Reunion and Google Maps

Reunion, like France, drives on the right. The rest of our stay in Reunion is across a number of villages/towns, with the first stop in the picturesque village of Hell Bourg. The drive up the mountains followed a twisted road from the main highway that circles the island, with amazing scenery of the mountains with many water falls along the escarpment.

But it first means getting out of St Denis, and its many one way streets - and a big fail for Google Maps, which managed to get every one way street wrong. Luckily, I had walked around the area enough to know enough of the streets - but relying on Google Maps is certainly dangerous.

Restored Mansions

The spine of the old town St Denis runs from the central park (Le Jarine de l'État) to the sea with the cannons on the boulevard, as Rue de Paris/Avenue de la Victoire. Most of the buildings along this road are restored or reconstructed mansions from the early 1800's and the architecture is itself something to see. A few are museums and galleries, some seem to be government buildings while a few seem to remain in private hands. Even the lamp posts harken back to an old era where everything needed to be ornate.

A small museum/gallery

There was almost nothing open on Christmas day - even the main city park was closed. But amongst one of the restored mansions on Rue de Paris, a small art gallery with a recently opened exhibition was open - a cool, air conditioned respite from the heat. There were very few notes (even in French), nothing I could see about the artist and I have sadly even forgotten the name of the gallery.

Roland Garros

The namesake of the tennis stadium hosting the French Open, was a famed aviator and WW1 fighter pilot. Born in Saint Denis, he is probably its most famous son, and consequently there are quite a few things bearing his name (the airport, a road and a restaurant just the ones i have come across in Saint Denis). His statue is near the canons end of Le Barachois.

Le Barachois

Surrounding the city along the coast, Le Barachois is a paved promenade punctuated by a few attractions such as statues and canons. The statue commemorating a slave uprising in the mid 1800s is poignant; and the views are awesome.

Cathedral of Saint Denis

Over 150 years old, the Cathedral of Saint Denis is one of the landmarks of the city. The cathedral is surprisingly rather plain, although the mural of Christ is quite beautiful and strange (holding a cross while blessing worshippers?) and there was also a cute nativity scene on the side.

Church of Saint Jacques

The plain and simple exterior hides a simple, but beautiful interior. The church is a located a Km or so from the town centre, so it is not featured in most travel guides etc. but is well worth a visit for its stained glass windows and statues of various Christian saints.

Air Austral's Tail Fin

One of the most beautiful tail fins I have seen ...

The Grand Tour

Take the recipe of Top Gear (before the relaunch in 2016), remove the annoying celebrity interviews, add even better production quality (I didn't think it was possible for a car show), and you have The Grand Tour. 

There is not much new - and in fact, the segments that are frankly not needed. There is no need to have a chat sideline in "The Conversation Street" - the in-between segment banter is sufficient. "Celebrity Brain Crash", which replaced the celebrity interviews and instead manages to kill off interviewees in weird accidents is getting boring and nonsensical. 

The stand out is off course the cars and the fantastic test drive scenarios. Some segments - such as the Jordanian Special Forces in episode 2 or the environment cars in episode 4 have been weak; but overall the spread of cars, and the locations have been great.

Grand Tour can certainly run for the next 3 seasons - but the formula is ageing and I don't know how much longer it will make sense. But Top Gear itself, I think is now dead an buried.

Amazon Prime Video

The Grand Tour is not the most pirated show ever - but it certainly is one of the most pirated shows ever. That is not too surprising - Top Gear in the days of Clarkson was also one of the most pirated shows. Some years back, I wrote a paper on digital piracy (also related to a presentation at Indicare 2005) where I proposed that a key cause of piracy was availability of media and convenient format of media - and while factors such as price matter, digital piracy would remain an issue if availability in the right format is not solved for. The Grand Tour is the perfect example of this proposal - launching a highly popular show (well at least Top Gear was) but constrained to a few locations instead of the global reach.

Amazon's Prime Video service has now taken the leap of bridging the availability conundrum with its global launch. The key attraction - shown prominently on the web page - is off course The Grand Tour; but it does offer more than that. Amazon's own original series - Mozart in the Jungle, Man in the High Castle - are also on offer; and the price is phenomenal at USD 2.99 for the first 6 months followed by the standard price of USD 5.99. Oh, and there is a free trial also for a month.

However, the breadth of content is quite underwhelming. Starting with Amazon's own content - the content available is not all the content produced by Amazon. Furthermore, not all the seasons are there - I have access Mozart in the Jungle's first season, not the second for example (and the same with Transparent). Outside Amazon's own content - there are very few other top TV series, and the catalogue for movies is equally bare. 

Catalogue of content aside, the other big annoyance is the lack of Apple TV support. At this moment, I am downloading content to my phone and then playing via Airplay (and I am very impressed with its power efficiency). But what I would rather prefer is to queue content download on Apple TV, instead of relying on downloading when I am at home.I have tried the streaming - and have been generally quite impressed with the quality and speed. My Internet connection is flaky so prefer the download approach - but generally I have been impressed by the app.

I expect that the catalogue will grow with time - and there is enough right now to keep me interested and subscribed. I just need the Apple TV app ...