Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
fishy - crab, shrimps, fish and mussels, climaxing with a gargantuan
marmite du pêcheur
(€30), a kind of seafood stew. Downside: the dining room doesn't register even a blip on
the charm radar. It's just off the main road, east of St-Philippe.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Le Grand Brûlé
The crowning glory of the Wild South, the arid, eerie landscape of Le Grand Brûlé is a
6km-wide volcanic plain formed by the main lava flow from the volcano. This is where
the action goes when the volcano is erupting. The steep slopes above, known as Les
Grandes Pentes, have funnelled lava down to the coast for thousands of years.
Sights
Leaving St-Philippe to the east, you'll first come across
Puits Arabe
(Wells of the Arabs), a
manmade hole in the basaltic rock. It's a popular picnic site, with shelters scattered amid
rows of
vacoa
trees.
In 1986, the lava unusually flowed south of Le Grand Brûlé to reach the sea at
Pointe de
la Table
, a few hundred metres north of Puits Arabe. Part of the magmatic flow also
reached
Pointe du Tremblet
, to the north. This eruption added over 30 hectares to the island's
area, and more than 450 people had to be evacuated and several homes were lost. An in-
terpretative trail has been set up at Pointe de la Table and makes for a lovely hike on the
basaltic cliffs pounded by the ocean. Previous lava flows have been colonised by various
kinds of plants, including ferns and shrubs.
In April 2007, in one of the most violent eruptions ever recorded, another impressive
lava flow was formed, about 2km north of Pointe du Tremblet. The road was cut off for
several months. It's a primal experience to drive through the barren moonscape that is this
huge expanse of solidified, pure black lava field. Six years after the eruption, some
patches were still warm and belched off steam when it rained. It's forbidden to walk
across the lava flow, but a
viewing platform
has been built just off the RN2.
