Tahiti – Marché Papeete (Post #19)

The original plan for Papeete was to go to the Museum of Tahiti and The Islands, however, I checked the website the evening before and noticed that the permanent exhibition hall was closed for renovations.  We decided to skip the museum and visit next year when we will be back again.

Our revised plan was to go to the Papeete Municipal Market or Marché Papeete.

We left the ship around noon and headed toward the Marché.  On the way, we walked past the Venus Boutique “La Boîte à Couture” (The Sewing Box) which sells fabric and we stopped in for a look.

There were lots of tropical print fabrics, along with lace fabrics and some dressy fabrics.  There was also a small selection of yarn.  Judy enjoyed walking through the store thinking that she needs to look through her patterns at home, so she’ll have an idea of how much fabric to buy when we make a port call next year.   Here is a video tour of the inside of Venus Boutique.

The Papeete Market is across the street from the Venus Boutique.  We headed inside and spent some time browsing on the first floor.  On the first floor, you’ll find souvenirs, fresh meats, vegetables, flowers, and a variety of other items.  Along the street on the west side of the market, stalls sell fresh flowers made into leis and headdresses.  The second floor has a variety of smaller shops selling jewelry, T-shirts, and other souvenirs.

The second floor also has a few restaurants.  We chose the Café Maeva and ordered a couple of cheeseburgers.  Sometimes when you order cheeseburgers outside the United States, they’re not very good.  These were outstanding and we enjoyed them along with some French fries.

While we were enjoying our food, a rainstorm crossed over Papeete filling the streets with water and pounding the roof with a rat-tat-tat of heavy raindrops.  To help avoid rainstorms when we travel, we use the MyRadar Weather Radar app which you can find in the App Store.  This showed that the storms would be passing by in a few minutes, so we lingered over our food until the skies were once again clear.

We continued on a big loop back towards the ship and passed by City Hall.  On our previous trips to Papeete, we did a self-guided walking tour.  More information here.  Inside City Hall there is some local art on display and it’s worth stopping by for a look.

Magasin Hawaii and Select Papeete are fabric shops that are right next to each other and only a few blocks from the ship.  We stopped by on our way back to see what was available.  Magasin Hawaii has a selection of tropical print fabrics.  The staff was friendly and let us browse the isles.  Select Papeete is a smaller shop and not air-conditioned.  We didn’t stay long there.  Judy didn’t buy fabric in any of these shops.  But she’s planning on a fabric shopping spree the next time we are there.

NOTE:  A lot of shops in Papeete are closed on Sundays.  On weekends many of the shops are not open in the afternoons.

Every 30 days we were required to repeat the ship’s muster drill.  When we returned to the ship, we found our Muster Station on the Promenade Deck and had our key card scanned.  Returning to our cabin, we watched the safety video.

Comedian Kelly McDonald performed this evening on the World Stage.  He bills himself as a “clean” comedian and his show was exactly that and very entertaining.

Tomorrow will be another early day as we have our final snorkeling excursion on this cruise on Fakarava.