France scenic viewpoint
Belvédère des Trois Bancs
You can see 73 km from here, looking north.
Calculating the panorama…
Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.
The view
Up to 73 km away.
Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.
Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).
- 73 kmFarthest ridgelooking north
- 87%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 34%Seaof the circle where the horizon is the sea
- 8Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 356 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 8 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.
The sun
The best sunsets are from August to November.
When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.
- Janwest102 min before the sea-level sunset40%
- Febwest102 min before the sea-level sunset43%
- Marwest96 min before the sea-level sunset44%
- Aprwest92 min before the sea-level sunset51%
- Maynorth-west86 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Junnorth-west84 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Julnorth-west84 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Augnorth-west90 min before the sea-level sunset53%
- Sepwest96 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Octwest102 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Novwest102 min before the sea-level sunset56%
- Decwest102 min before the sea-level sunset52%
- Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
- Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
- %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).
The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.
The place
Belvédère des Trois Bancs.
Belvédère des Trois Bancs is a scenic viewpoint in France, 356 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 73 km away, looking north.
The sea fills 34% of the horizon.
8 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Chaîne des Mariannes (2,228 m), 14 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 87% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from August to November.

Get there and stay
- Maison Bellepierreplace to stay · 1.1 km · 63 within 10 km
- La Montagnenearest town · 1.5 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in La MontagneBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Roland Garros Airport (RUN)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 9 km in a straight lineCar hire at RUN airport (Sainte-Marie)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above
The viewpoint and its surroundings.
The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 24other viewpoints within 5 kmFenêtre de l'Îlet à Guillaume, Belvédère des Trois bancs, Belvédère de la Vigie and 21 more
- 4named peaks within 5 kmPiton Patates, Piton de Saint-François, Piton du Butor and 1 more
- 3cable car and funicular stations within 5 kmBois de Nèfles, Bancoul, Moufia
- 3marked trails within 3 kmGR R2, Sentier Mercure, Sentier botanique de la Providence
- 74shelters and huts within 5 km
- 215car parks within 3 km
- 1visitor centres within 5 kmOffice de tourisme Intercommunal du Nord de La Réunion
- 171restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- 63places to stay within 10 kmMaison Bellepierre, La Kaz Bellepierre, Central Hotel and 60 more
- campsites within 10 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
In our other atlases
What you see from Belvédère des Trois Bancs, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q130242013) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Islandyas, Forestyas, Birdyas, Canyonyas, Cascadyas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.






