Immerse yourself in penal history on a visit to this former prison.
On Nou island in Nouméa, the Témoignage d'un Passé association runs, on reservation, historical tours of the former Nouville penal colony, which held more than twenty-two thousand convicts from 1864 to 1927. Tours target groups of ten or more and school visits. The route covers the penitentiary's buildings — Commandant's house, prisoners' bakery, chapel, workshops — and tells of the difficulties of sheltering, feeding and caring for nearly a thousand men a day, as well as the beginnings of European settlement through the convicts' road and building works. The renewed route dives into daily prison life: sentencing, work, organisation, gradual rooting. Book your visit.
Photos are permitted without flash.