Raphaella after the tv-interview at the roof of TNTV (Tahiti Nui Télévision) in Papeete

Organizer Jean-Louis Larey and Raphaella and a poster of "Musique en Polynésie"

concert at 40°C (104°F) !

a comfortable beach cabin ...

and a laguna in front of the door ...
... no need for more!

TAHITI & BORA-BORA,
French Polynesia
February 17-26, 2008

Raphaella Smits was invited for a concert trip to French Polynesia.
The way there should be respectively a TGV (high-speed train) from Brussels to Paris (Aeroport Charles De Gaulle), a flight with Air France from Paris to Los Angeles and a flight from LA to Papeete, capital of Tahiti. Just before leaving home an e-mail of Air France informed that the flight LA-Papeete was canceled. The next flight due from LA went only three days later!
Thanks to a very customer-friendly employee of KLM/AF, Raphaella could switch to an alternative route leaving from Brussels Airport via Amsterdam to Tokyo and further on to Tahiti. After a journey of 32 hours La Smits arrived at her destination.

On February 21 Raphaella gave a master class at the Conservatoire de Papeete. Next she was flown over to the island Bora-Bora, an atoll located about 250 km northwest of Tahiti.
On February 22 she gave there a recital in the library of the magnificent resort Le Méridien.
There Raphaella could have a taste of paradise, with delicious local dishes and her own beach cabin at the lagoon ...

Back in Papeete Raphaella gave a (steaming) recital on saturday night February 23 and ditto on sunday afternoon February 24 in the Paevai Hall of the hotel Sofitel Tahiti Resort (formerly known as Maeva Beach).

All in all a short but very unique experience ...

French Polynesia is a huge expanse of water of 4 million km2 in the southern Pacific Ocean, spangled with 118 islands, altogether hardly 4000 km2.

Tahiti, or formerly known as O'Tahiti, was revealed in Europe only after 1768 by the book Voyage autour du Monde of the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville.
He described the island as a piece of heaven on earth, where men and women live happily in innocence, far away from corruption and civilization!

Surrounded by lagoons and barrier reefs, the remnants of an extinct volcano: this must be paradise ...

But it is not just nature that makes a great impression, the culture of the old Polynesians is precious too, with their rock-drawings, their ceremonial platforms and their old legends about gods and demigods.