Plage de Saint Leu, Reunion

Plage de Saint Leu carries a double reputation, and it pays to keep the two halves apart. To the wider world Saint Leu is a name spoken with reverence by surfers, a long, perfect left that peels along the reef and ranks among the finest waves in the Indian Ocean. To the beach traveller, the town front is something altogether gentler, a slim, low key strand on a sheltered reef lagoon, quieter and more local than the busy beaches to the north. The light here is lovely in the late afternoon, the church and the town giving the front a settled, unhurried character that the resort beaches lack.

The honest read is to be clear about which Saint Leu you are visiting. The lagoon at the town beach is the swimming and snorkelling story, calm, shallow and clear inside the reef, a pleasant and uncrowded place to float over the coral and watch small fish, and a real alternative to the busier L'Hermitage lagoon. The famous wave is the other story entirely, a serious reef break well beyond the lagoon, and surfing on Reunion is tightly governed under the island's water safety rules following the shark crisis. So you do not paddle out here on a whim, and you do not mistake the surf coast for swimmable water. Inside the lagoon you swim, beyond the reef you do not.

So our verdict is to come to Saint Leu for the calm, the quiet lagoon and the relaxed town, a gentler and more local west coast day than the headline beaches give. Swim and snorkel inside the lagoon on a still dry season morning, take a slow lunch in town, and if you are a surfer, treat the wave with the seriousness it demands and only within the local rules and supervision. Watch the surf from the shore by all means, it is a genuine spectacle, but read the swim and the surf as two separate things and Saint Leu rewards you on both counts.