CULTURAL & HERITAGE VISITS
Your entry ticket for the Cité de la Voile also offers you a discount on your entry ticket to the Citadel and its museums in Port Louis.
And in the same way, your entry ticket for the Citadel and its museums also gives you a discount for the Cité de la Voile.
COMBINED OFFERS
With the Pass, visit several museums and make the most of our special offers.
COMBINED OFFERS
An entry ticket for the Cité de la Voile = a discount on your entry ticket to the Citadelle and its museums… and vice-versa
The Citadelle and its museums
The Citadelle in Port-Louis, originally constructed by the Spanish and rebuilt during the reign of Louis XIII, owes its reputation to the wares of the East and the ships on the road to India that provided their protection in the 17th century. Constructed on a rocky escarpment, it constitutes an imposing edifice that bears the imprint of the history of Brittany.
Up until the beginning of the 20th century, the Citadel was used to defend the roadstead and subsequently to monitor maritime traffic. The last military personnel left the site in 2007.
This fortress, whose ramparts are now open to visitors, is also home to two museums: The National Maritime Museum and the East India Company Museum whose collections evoke the wealth of the exchanges with Asia.
The National Maritime Museum
Admire the exceptional view of the Lorient roadstead and the Ile de Groix from the top of the ramparts! The museum is composed of two major thematic spaces.
The first deals with ‘sea rescue’ by means of a collection that is unique in France: Discover the history of the amazing fraternity of individuals as described through moving memories, objects, models and wide-screen films.
For the second space, hold your breath! Ocean Treasures (Trésors d’Océans) takes you alongside marine archaeologists on the sea route to India. You can explore with them the fabulous submerged cargoes in Mauritius, dive inside the Griffin and even find traces of Lena and Espagnola; junks forgotten beneath the waves for over 400 years…
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The East India Company
The East India Company museum, unique in France, lets visitors relive the extraordinary history of the great trading company during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Models of ships, prints, old maps, Indo-European furnishings and decorations, Chinese porcelain, and Indian cotton all bear witness to this incredible maritime epic.
It is this quest for precious merchandise that led the officers of the Company, after long and perilous journeys at sea, to the shores of Africa, Asia and America to build the trading posts whose names are an echo of this adventurous past: Ouidah, Moka, Puducherry, Chandannagar, Bago, Canton…
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