In March, my husband and I spent a wonderful week exploring western Louisiana’s Cajun country. I’ll try to be brief, but there is SO much to see and do.

First, you need to know that the hurricanes did not damage this area of Louisiana, although they felt the results when some small towns tripled in population as refugees moved in.

We visited the city of Lafayette and three parishes (counties), Acadia, St. Landry and Evangeline. We flew into New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon, picked up a rental car at the nearly disserted airport, and drove straight to Lafayette on I-10 (about a 2 hour drive). By the time we got there we were hungry, and went straight to Prejean’s on I-49, north of I-10. Big Al, a stuffed alligator, welcomed us to the barny wooden building. Prejeans’ crab and eggplant appetizer, gumbo and shrimp etouffe put us in the mood for Cajun territory. An extra treat was calling family on our cell phone and having them go to www.prejeans.com to watch us on the web cam.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn, nicer than many Holiday Inns in its very quiet location back from Evangeline Thruway. The next morning, we did a slight backtrack because I wanted to have breakfast at Café de Chez Amis in Breaux Bridge. I had read about their Saturday morning Cajun music jam, but even though we were there on a weekday, wanted to check out the cafe. We had time to wander around the quaint little town, past closed antique and gift shops still showing lots of glitzy Mardi Gras wares, because everything opens late. Finally, at 9:00 a.m. we got in to Chez Amis which is atmospheric and serves real Cajun food. My husband was disappointed in the couche-couche, which was authentic but bland (kind of corn meal mush). My meal of eggs with boudin sausage (spicy!) and grits with cheese was tastier. When you go, ask about the strange contraption by the front door, left over from when caskets were manufactured upstairs.

We drove back to Lafayette’s airport to find the Cajun Cultural Center, part of the 5-part Jean Lafitte National Historic Park. http://www.nps.gov/jela/Acadianculturalcenter.htm. It provides a good introduction to Cajun history and life. Next door is the private, non-profit Vermilionville, a living history museum with volunteers in costume in typical Cajun cottages. Some are replicas, some the real thing moved from original locations. www.vermilionville.org A great place for kids as well as adults.

After a quick tour of these two spots, we headed back west on I-10 and got off at exit 82 for the Acadia Parish Tourist office where we picked up lots of information. We drove through Rayne (Frog City) and looked at the frog murals, then on to Crowley where we toured the small museum in the City Hall. The historic Ford Building houses the City Hall with remaining machinery that helped assemble Ford cars in the twenties. Other historic buildings in the downtown area include a restored theater, The Rice Theater. Did I mention that this is the rice capital? Every town in this area has a moniker and a festival to match. We drove around town, following the historic homes map provided by the tourism office and then took a jaunt out to the tiny town of Church Point, enjoying the rice and crawfish fields. Yep, crawfish grow in fields. We particularly enjoyed the strange little boats with wheels that farmers use to harvest the crawfish. Ate lunch at Fezzo’s, a very popular local spot with delicious food. We ate dinner at Chef Roy’s Frog City Café, not to be confused with the Frog City truck plaza on the opposite side of the freeway. Chef Roy’s was another down-home cajun-cooking place and this being crawfish season, we probably should have indulged in a tray of boiled crawfish, but somehow picking around in those little shells for bits of meat did not appeal. We stuck to dishes where somebody in the kitchen had dug out the meat.

Stayed the night in the Rayne Best Western Motel beside I-10, a very noisy place since it is next to the truck stop. One of the many B & B’s in historic houses in Crowley would have been a better choice.

Next morning we were on Hwy 13, the Zydeco Cajun Prairie Byway, http://zydecocajunbyway.com/ headed for Eunice. As you follow Hwy 13 in to town making a few turns, you will come to a cluster of buildings by the railroad track and a red caboose. There we visited the Cajun French Music Association Museum, and the Eunice City Museum and the St. Landry toursim office for more brochures and maps. Leaving our car, we walked a couple blocks to the downtown area to see the restored 1920’s Liberty Theater, the small downtown area on 2nd Street, and a visit to the Jean Lafitte Cajun Prairie Center. We also saw the Eunice prairie preservation project, which would be spectacular a little later in the spring with blooming wildflowers.

We had a terrific lunch at Mathilda’s Country Kitchen, a typical small wooden shack building with a smoke shed out back that produces incredibly good barbeque at prices under six dollars for a plate lunch that includes potato salad, beans and “rice dressing” and bread. (Dr. Atkins is rolling in his grave). That night, we adventurously drove out into the countryside to find D.I.’s, a middle-of-nowhere restaurant and dance hall where whole families were demolishing trays of boiled crawfish and dancing off calories to a live French Cajun band. People would come up and talk to us as though we were acquaintances. I tried to imagine someone in NYC, or even in my home town of Tucson, walking up and starting a conversation in the middle of your meal!

We checked into the Eunice Best Western, which was okay, but if I had it to do again, I’d try to stay at the downtown B & B, Poitier’s Cajun Inn http://potiers.net

Saturday mornings are for Cajun music here. You can choose between Mark Savoy’s place near Eunice or Fred’s Lounge in Mamou. Mark Savoy was a child prodigy on the accordion and still builds accordions as well as playing with his family band around the world. I chose Fred’s because it is known as practically holy ground for Cajun music fans. Fred died several years ago, and the bar is open only on Saturday mornings (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) The parking lot was full of motorcycles, but the patrons were a mixed lot including local white-haired couples in western wear dancing in the small cleared space next to the band. The whole thing is broadcast live. (Forgot to mention earlier that there are plenty of radio stations that broadcast in French, so tune your radio to the local station like 101.1 FM as you drive.)

(Part 2 follows)

Part Deux:
After the concert, we enjoyed seeing the pretty little town with towering live oak trees and the equally pretty parish seat of Ville Platte. There we had lunch at the Pig Stand, which like Mathilda’s, serves plate lunches with their own brand of barbeque sauce. I can’t eat onions and asked if the potato salad had onions. The waitress gave me a bemused look and said, “No it is just normal potato salad.” Where I come from, “normal” potato salad comes in chunks instead of mashed and it has onions!

Ville Platte also has a small historic museum and a nature park besides some beautiful large homes. Back to Eunice for Rendezvous des Cajun live radio show produced every Saturday night at the Liberty Theater and dinner at Nick’s on 2nd Street. Nick’s is more polished than the barbeque shacks, but serves great food in a historic venue. Can’t forget to mention that our two breakfasts in Eunice were at the Pelican, another of those places with the barbeque smoke shack out back. Yummy and very inexpensive.

The next day was mostly road trip as we headed north on the Byway to Turkey Creek and then a bit south to visit the state Arboretum and Chicot Lake State Park, both beautiful and peaceful places. There are campsites and cabins available at Chicot. An amazing variety of birdsong entertained us at the Arboretum—a natural forest, not gardens—and we also enjoyed water birds along the road in the crawfish fields. Pelicans, egrets, gulls, and blue heron abound. It was Sunday and we were racing toward the little historic town of Washington in order to arrive before the 2:00 p.m. closing of the Steamboat Warehouse Restaurant. It is worth the rush. The 1800’s era building has been preserved beautifully and you can dine while looking out the window at a quiet Bayou. The food was wonderful and when we asked a few questions, the owner happened by and gave us a “tour” of the memorabilia plastering the walls.

Washington is a walking town, crammed with antique shops and historic buildings as well as a plantation garden that is open to the public. We stayed at the Country House B & B, which has no internet site or e-mail. If you want to stay there, call owner June Lowery at 337-826-3052. But hurry because unfortunately she may be getting out of the business before long. An artist, she has one small cottage hung with her art. We stayed in the second cottage, full kitchen, king bed, very quiet. There are also rooms in the main house where she lives on the first floor. She cooks breakfast and eats with the guests in her beautiful dining room. If her place is not available, there are several other B & Bs in town. However there are no restaurants other than the Steamboat Warehouse, so you may have to go to a nearby town for some meals. Not to worry, all these towns are about a day’s ride by horse back (15 minutes by car) apart.

The next morning we drove back through Opelousas to I-10 and New Orleans for our return home. The trip was loaded with surprises. For instance, Big Al at Prejeans was the closest we came to swamps and alligators, which are the common perception of how Cajuns live. We knew that Cajun music was lively, but had never fully realized what a naturally party-loving people these folks are. They will have a party at the drop of a hat. And food—they told us that at lunch, they start talking about what they will have at dinner, and at dinner, they are planning tomorrow’s lunch. My kind of people.

You are talking about my home -- there is no place like Louisiana, and its diversity will amaze most people. Though you stuck primarily to the Cajun country, there are lots of other sights all across the state. I sorta hope it isn't discovered by too many people. We have a good thing in Louisiana, where I grew up but no longer live, and it's so good that I'm leaving Florida to return there next year for good.

Thanks for the great report--it made me homesick.

Yes, Wayne, there is great diversity, and most visitors never venture outside of New Orleans. My local Border's had NO books on Louisiana outside of New Orleans on the travel shelf! We had been to NOLA twice and loved it, but wanted to see more. Even the diversity of the small area we visited was surprising to us.

I live in Eunice, and you saw a lot of interesting things on your trip.

Next time go to Mark Savoy's jam session on Saturday morning. It is a great low key totally authentic (no electronics) jam session with a combination of elderly famous musicians with fiddles and accordians, teenagers with guitars, Mark or his son at the piano, any one who wants can play the spoons or triangle. When my son is in town for a visit, he just walks in and plays the bass that is always there. There will be a few people dancing, too. If you want , you can help yourself to the boudin and beer that are sitting on the counter.
Come in and enjoy the music. The only rule is don't walk out in the middle of a song!

The other thing you missed was Magnolia Ridge Plantation in Washington. This is a circa 1830's antebellum house with beautiful front columns that is surrounded by 70 acres of grounds that are open to the public at no charge. The house is only open during spring pilgrimage, but we often go walking there on a Sunday afternoon and have a wonderful walk through the gardens, by the cypress swamp ringed by yellow and purple swamp iris, by the Confederate cementary, down the Indian trail. Be sure to go there next visit.

Great trip report, cher! ;-) Thanks for posting!

Thanks for the trip report! We'll be traveling through Cajun Country on our way to and from Gulf Shores, and half of my excitement is because of our stops in Louisiana! We're staying in St. Francisville and Sunset (just north of Lafayette), and it'll be our first views of the plantations and Acadia. So I really appreciated your report. Glad you had such a great time.

Thanks for the replies.
Need to correct--the restaurant in Breaux Bridge is actually Cafe des Amis. (Don't know how that 'chez' got in there).

Saraho: We had to choose between Mark Savoy's and Fred's Lounge in Mamou. I thoroughly enjoyed Fred's Lounge, and partly made the choice because we had a chance for an extended visit with Mark Savoy earlier. He is an amazing person!
As to Magnolia Ridge, it had closed by the time we got there on Sunday (after our late lunch) but we peered in from the parking lot. Yes, looks fabulous. We did not have much time in Washington.
divingaggie: I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself. The purpose of posting is to encourage people to visit this lesser know part of the country.

Vera

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