A Long Weekend in Reunion: The Offbeat Plan
Three days buys you the coast and one cirque, and Cilaos is the one worth the climb: a spa town with its own wine, its own lentils, and a road famous for 400-plus numbered hairpin bends. This plan spends day one in Saint-Denis, day two at the lagoon, and day three up in the mountains, overnight, because Cilaos rewards more than a drive-through. Want a shorter trip? The 2 day weekend skips Cilaos entirely. Want more cirques? The 7 day itinerary adds Salazie and the volcano.
| Day | Focus | Drive time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saint-Denis arrival, the Barachois waterfront | 10-15 min from Roland Garros airport |
| 2 | Saint-Gilles/L’Ermitage lagoon, plus a Maido detour | 35-40 min each way |
| 3 | Cilaos: the spa town, the wine, the lentils | 1h15-2h from the west coast |
Book these before you go
- Compare Saint-Gilles beach hotels , the lagoon-side rooms sell out first
- Check Cilaos guesthouse availability , rooms are limited in a town this small
- Book a Cilaos day tour with Viator , useful if you would rather not drive the hairpins yourself
- Compare rental cars on Discover Cars , essential from day 3 onward regardless
Day 1: Saint-Denis, and an airport named for the wrong sport
Land at Roland Garros Airport (RUN), about 10km from Saint-Denis, and get the trivia out of the way early: it is named for the aviator Roland Garros, born on Reunion in 1888, first to fly solo across the Mediterranean in 1913, killed in WWI in 1918. The Paris tennis stadium borrowed his name in 1928, a decade after his death, because aviation was the headline sport of the era. Walk Le Barachois, the seafront promenade where old cannons still face the water, then Rue de Paris for the 19th-century Creole mansions, Maison Carrère included, free to admire from outside. The euro is the currency: Reunion is French, EU, and eurozone, but sits outside Schengen and the EU VAT area, worth knowing before you assume every EU rule applies unmodified.
Day 2: The lagoon, and a village you can see but not drive to
Drive 35-40 minutes to Saint-Gilles-les-Bains and L’Ermitage, where the fringing coral reef creates the one stretch of coast where swimming is not restricted. Since July 2013, swimming and surfing have been banned across most of the open west-coast ocean, following a serious shark-attack cluster; the Centre Sécurité Requin still actively monitors the zones today. The lagoon is exempt, calm, and warm, 24-27°C year round. Early risers should detour up to the Maido viewpoint first, about an hour’s drive, for a look down into the roadless Cirque de Mafate before the morning cloud arrives, usually by 8am.
Day 3: Cilaos, 400 bends and a wine nobody expects
The road into Cilaos, part of the Parc national de La Réunion ’s core zone, is the whole event: one paved route in, famous for more than 400 numbered hairpin bends, roughly 1h15-2h from the west coast depending on traffic. Once down in the caldera, Cilaos runs its own thermal spa, the Thermes de Cilaos, treating rheumatism since the 19th century, plus small pale lentils grown around Ilet à Cordes and Reunion’s only wine, a genuine Pinot Noir, Malbec, and Chenin grown at 1,200 meters. Order a glass of the local rhum arrangé with dinner, rum aged for months with local fruit like vanilla or lychee, and it is the closest thing this island has to a bottled souvenir of the trip.
Do you need a rental car for three days?
Yes, from the moment Cilaos enters the plan. Car Jaune buses do reach Cilaos, but on a fixed, slow schedule that makes a one-night stay impractical without your own wheels, and the hairpin drive itself is part of what you came for. Rent from around €20-25 a day in low season, expect roughly double that in October.
Is Cilaos worth a night away from the coast?
Yes, specifically because it is the one cirque that rewards a short visit: a thermal spa, a wine tasting, a lentil-based dinner, and the Piton des Neiges trailhead, all in one reachable base. Salazie is a better half-day; Mafate demands a real multi-day commitment or a helicopter. Cilaos is the cirque built for exactly the time budget a 3 day trip actually has.
Book the Cilaos guesthouse before the wine tasting, not after; the town is small enough that a good room and a table at the right restaurant both go fast on weekends.