Pamplemousses and L'Aventure du Sucre, twenty minutes from the villa

The garden was laid out in the eighteenth century by Pierre Poivre, the French administrator who smuggled nutmeg and clove plants out of the Dutch East Indies to break their spice monopoly. It became a botanical garden in 1770 and has kept its avenues of palms, its ponds and its colonial château. It is named after Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, the first prime minister of independent Mauritius, who is buried there. Thirty-seven hectares, flat, shaded, and quiet on a weekday morning.

The pond of giant water lilies, Victoria amazonica, whose leaves reach two metres across and whose flowers open white one evening and close pink the next. The talipot palms, which flower once after decades and then die. The avenue of royal palms, the lotus pond, the spice garden with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and camphor trees you can smell when you crush a leaf. The giant tortoises and the deer enclosure, which children head for first. The Château de Mon Plaisir and the trees planted by visiting heads of state. Count on ninety minutes at a walking pace, two hours with children.

Open every day from early morning to about five. Go at opening, when the light is soft and the coaches have not arrived; by eleven it is hot and busy. Entry is a few hundred rupees for visitors; Mauritian residents pay less. A guide waits at the entrance and is worth the small fee for an hour: the garden has few labels and the stories make it. From the villa it is twenty minutes by car, parking at the gate. Wear closed shoes in the rainy season and bring water; there is a small kiosk but no restaurant inside.

Five minutes from the garden, the Beau Plan sugar factory closed in 1999 and reopened as a museum. It explains how sugar made Mauritius: the plantations, slavery and indenture, the mills, the railways, the trade. The machines are still in the building, the route takes about an hour and a half, and it ends in a shop and tasting room with the island's unrefined sugars and a range of rums. The restaurant in the grounds, under the trees, does a good lunch. Open daily; the two visits together fill a morning and a lunch.

The village has the church of Saint François d'Assise, one of the oldest on the island, and a small market. Fifteen minutes further, the Château de Labourdonnais at Mapou is a restored nineteenth-century plantation house with orchards, a rum distillery and a good table; it is the natural extension if the morning has gone well. Back towards the coast, Goodlands market on Tuesday and Friday mornings is on the way.

The tortoises, the deer, the water lilies and the space to run make the garden an easy outing from about three years old. Bring a hat, water and something to eat; the paths are pushchair-friendly. L'Aventure du Sucre holds attention from about eight, mainly for the machines and the tasting of sugars at the end. Both are rain-proof enough for a grey morning, which is the best time to go.