Day trip to Cajun Country

Ok, you experts, I need you again. We are leaving NJ this Saturday on our way to NOLA and I can%26#39;t wait.

We have one day to drive out to Cajun country. Been looking at the forums here and several books I have. In your opinions, which is the best town to go to? Lafayette? Requirements are a good swamp tour and some live authentic music served with some great food of course.

We are willing to drive 2 hours or so to get there. Will be returning to New Orleans that night.

Any help to end my decisional paralysis would be most welcome.

Day trip to Cajun Country

If it fits your schedule have a meal at Cafe des Amis in Breax Bridge which is 10 minutes east of Lafayette on I-10. Wonderful food .Too bad you will miss their Sat breakfast with Zydeco music and dancing--yes dancing at breakfast and the place is packed with locals. We often (last week) stay at the Country Charm B%26amp;B in BB. My GS caught a big catfish!!

You will get rec for Mulates and or Prejeans--We find them to be way over rated!!

http://www.cafedesamis.com/

www.bbonline.com/la/countrycharm/rooms.html

Dave

Day trip to Cajun Country

What day do you plan to come to Cajun Country? There are many things to do that are day specific. Cafe Des Amis is wonderful. On Wednesday evenings they have a band that plays there also. Not as crowded. The food is amazing, but a little pricey. Definitely worth it. If you let us know what day you plan on coming during the week can be a little more specific.

A few years back, my friend and fellow poster, RodinLouisiana emailed me with an amazing intinerary for a %26#39;backcountry%26#39; visit.

So far, I unfortunately haven%26#39;t had the time to make the journey, but I%26#39;ve kept the email for when I am ready.

I hope he doesn%26#39;t mind, but I%26#39;ll post it here:

';Okay, here are a few ideas for you.

It%26#39;s not very far from New Orleans, but you might consider spending your first night at Wildlife Gardens. You could get a leisurely late start from New Orleans, then take in one of their swamp tours, before spending the night in one of their cabins.

You seem to have done a bit of research, and I concur with most of your choices. Fred%26#39;s in Mamou is a must do, as is the Liberty Theater in Eunice. I%26#39;d also suggest splitting your Saturday morning between Fred%26#39;s and the jam session at Savoy Music Center. After the show at the Liberty, if you still have any energy left, drive on over to D.I.%26#39;s, in Basile, which is right down the road from Eunice, for a great dinner and for some more music and dancing.

On Sunday morning, tune your car radio to 88.7 FM, which is the frequency for KRVS, the Lafayette NPR station, to hear a great Cajun music program. This isn%26#39;t commercial Cajun music; it%26#39;s the real stuff.

An interesting place to spend a night or two would be would be Bayou Cabins, in Breaux Bridge. The original Mulate%26#39;s, in Breaux Bridge, is still going strong, and is worth a visit.

Just down the road from Breaux Bridge is Henderson, the location of Angelle%26#39;s Whiskey River Landing, which usually has a band on Sunday afternoons. You can also rent a houseboat for the day and night at Houseboat Adventures.

%26#39;m inferring a certain spirit of adventure, from some of the things you said in your post, so I%26#39;m going to suggest some places that many visitors to our state would probably bypass. Let me know if I%26#39;m off the mark, and I%26#39;ll suggest alternates.

If you spend Monday and Tuesday nights in New Orleans, you could strike out on your jaunt Wednesday morning. Two popular plantations, Laura and Oak Alley plantations are a short drive from New Orleans, and within a few miles of each other. The house at Oak Alley is not, in my opinion, that impressive. I suggest just walking around the grounds at Oak Alley, and perhaps catching a few photos from the road. DO NOT eat in the restaurant. You can grab a bite to eat at B %26amp; C Seafood, which is just right down the road.

The afternoon could be taken up by a swamp tour, such as A Cajun Man%26#39;s Swamp Cruise or one of these other swamp tours in the Houma area. Just stay away from those awful, loud airboat tours.

An interesting place to spend the night in that area would be Wildlife Gardens.

Back on U.S. 90 for the drive North, you%26#39;ll soon come to St. Martinville. Also in that general area are: Lake Fausse Point State Park, Avery Island, and Vermillionville.

Lodging for the night could be at T%26#39;Frere%26#39;s. Your hosts would be excellent sources of information for attractions and must-sees in that area. Dinner that night could be at Randol%26#39;s or Prejean%26#39;s.

You could either spend the next night (Friday) there, or journey a short distance to Breaux Bridge, to the Bayou Cabins. Just be warned....compared to T%26#39;Frere%26#39;s, these places are primitive %26lt;smile%26gt;. Remember that spirit of adventure I mentioned?

Okay...now you%26#39;re prepared to spend Saturday morning in Acadiana. The problem with being in Acadiana on a Saturday morning is that EVERYTHING happens on Saturday morning, and you can only pick one place to go.

In Breaux Bridge, there%26#39;s the Zydeco breakfast at Cafe des Amis, which also has a B%26amp;B, by the way. There%26#39;s also the Saturday morning jam session at Marc Savoy%26#39;s Music Center, in Eunice, and the once a week (Saturday mornings only) opening of Fred%26#39;s Lounge, in Mamou. If you plan it right, you can make both Fred%26#39;s Lounge and the Savoy jam session, since Eunice and Mamou are only about 12 miles apart. You%26#39;ll need to get to Fred%26#39;s early (before 8:00), to get a seat.

If you%26#39;ll hang around the Eunice area until the evening, you can catch the ';Rendez-vous des Cajuns'; at the Liberty Theater. If you choose to stay for the show, lodging should be somewhere in the Lafayette or Breaux Bridge areas, so you won%26#39;t be facing a long drive after the show.

For your journey back to New Orleans, I suggest I-10, going through Baton Rouge. That route will take you across the Atchafalaya Basin. An interesting stop would be at Angelle%26#39;s Whiskey River Landing, where they%26#39;ll probably have a band. Sunday afternoons are party times in South Louisiana, when the weather is good.

This route would put you back in New Orleans some time Sunday afternoon, depending on how long you choose to party (or not) at Whiskey River Landing.

As you can see, one week will barely scratch the surface. You could spend that amount of time just in New Orleans. However, I%26#39;m glad that you%26#39;re choosing to see other parts of our state. ';

Cewayfarer Thanks for posting that, wish I had the time to follow that itinerary, maybe next trip.

Swtcjn grl We are pretty open as far as the day. We arrive in NO mid to late afternoon on Mon the 23rd, and stay until following Sunday, check out Mon morn and spend 2 nights at Oak Alley then head to Memphis. Going to do the River Road tour on the drive up to Oak Alley. Plan on touring Laura Plantation also.

What I have planned so far is just walking around the Quarter, eating at good restaurants, Preservation Hall, Snug Harbor, Mardi Gras World, shopping, Cemetary tour, Katrina Tour. I contacted Hassan Awad who has been highly recommended on here and he said I need to call him when we get in next Mon and he will tell me his availabilty for Katrina tour next week. We could drive out to Lafayette on Weds and stay for dinner at that Cafe if the tour doesn%26#39;t happen that day.

My daughter also loves the beach. Was planning on driving across Lake Ponchartrain to the Mississippi Gulf area for a day at the beach unless those areas are still too devastated for such activity. Are there any gulf coast beaches closer to New Orleans?

Is it better to try and drive out to Cajun country on a weekday as opposed to weekend, as far as crowds and traffic go?

Thanks for your input!

Wednesday that week would definitely be nice. There is a great band playing the 25th at Cafe Des Amis. Here is the link to the resturant http://www.cafedesamis.com/ Also Saturday would be a great day to come down for the breakfast. That is an experience. It is extremely crowded but lots of fun. The following is a like for swamp tours http://www.cajuncountry.org/nature.html

There is always something going on in Acadiana. Let us know anything else you would be interested in. Most of the beaches in this area are not great until you get to Alabama or Florida.

McCandle, In reference to:

';My daughter also loves the beach. Was planning on driving across Lake Ponchartrain to the Mississippi Gulf area for a day at the beach unless those areas are still too devastated for such activity. Are there any gulf coast beaches closer to New Orleans?';

There really aren%26#39;t any beaches in the New Orleans vincinity. You%26#39;d have to go east to Mississippi (Hwy 90 or I-10) to reach them, and as of last March 07, they were still fairly devastated. Well perhaps not the beaches so much but there was just no towns attached to the beach. To be honest though, it was such a pretty drive, much as you%26#39;d imagine the beach pre-condos and commercialization on both sides of the highway which runs right along the gulf. The beaches themselves seemed in fairly decent shape .but there were some beach areas then that were roped off as inaccessible. We took Hwy 90 all the way through MS and didn%26#39;t really reach much civilization until Biloxi. I know March isn%26#39;t beach weather, but we saw very few cars and no one on the beaches. Going south from New Orleans about 90 miles is Grand Isle. It too has beaches but I%26#39;m sure they are not what you and your daughter would expect. The sand there was very dark due to the discharge of the Mississippi River. I went there pre-Katrina and even then, didn%26#39;t see anyone enjoying the beach. Granted again, it was off season, October I believe. Either way a beach trip would take pretty much an entire day of your New Orleans vacation. If you have a day or two on the beginning or the end, you might want to hit the panhandle of Florida to enjoy the beach.

Hey, Cindy. I%26#39;m flattered that you%26#39;ve kept my emails all this time. Looking back at some of my recommendations, I feel the need to issue a few caveats about some of the restaurants I mentioned. We don%26#39;t make it a point to go to places such as Mulates and Randol%26#39;s. We don%26#39;t consider the food to be real good, and they%26#39;re a bit touristy. However, many of the folks who are visiting Cajun country for the first time enjoy them immensely. Although the locals may not find the food to be outstanding, it seems to suit the visitors just fine. And, these places offer Cajun French bands along with your meal, so, again, they%26#39;re just what the visitors are looking for. I will say that, in my opinion, Prejean%26#39;s is an exception. I take customers to Prejean%26#39;s for lunch quite often, at their request. If the locals like it, it can%26#39;t be too bad, although the food there is a tad spicy for folks who aren%26#39;t used to heavy seasonings.

It%26#39;s good to see your posts. Hopefully, we%26#39;ll hook up again in New Orleans, one of these days.

We%26#39;re making a tattoo trip to New Orleans on the 28th of this month. Electric Ladyland, here we come!

Tattoo huh? Where do you go in NO for one? My hubbie wants anoher (only has 1) but I wasn%26#39;t so sure about getting one in NO. Let me know what you think.

Zmyst :

I figured on a couple of hours each way so taking a whole day wouldn%26#39;t bother me. Kind of interested to see the gulf coast areas as far as effects of Katrina, like along Pass Christian and that area.

I loaded the beach chairs and umbrellas in the car tonight in case we decide to make a day of it. I was wondering about facilities along the way and your post cleared that up for me.

Thanks so much for your input. Will be leaving day after tomorrow, can%26#39;t wait to be strolling the Quarter next Monday.

If your interested in seeing the effects of Katrina on the Gulf Coast, you%26#39;ll most definitely want to make the trip. May I recommend taking Hwy 90 (Chef Menteur Hwy) out of East New Orleans. If I%26#39;m not mistaken it%26#39;s exit 240B taking I-10 East from the French Quarter. It will take you out through the bayou, which was fasinating to see the effects of Katrina in that area then goes on to the Mississippi Coast. This trip will give you an astonishing perceptive of just how wide Katrina was. After you get out of New Orleans the highway is little traveled, because there really isn%26#39;t very much left of the area for anyone to go to, but the highway itself was in good shape. I know I had to detour twice in Mississippi due to bridges being out. Once around Pass Christian and again around Bay St. Louis. I think the Bay St. Louis bridge is back in use again, someone else here may be able to answer that. But it was a fairly short detour, about 5 miles to I-10 and a little over 5 miles back to the beach. To me it was worth every moment of the trip and was one of the highlights of my last trip to New Orleans. Make sure to pack a lunch (or pick up some great sandwiches from Verti Mart, corner of Royal and Ursuline or Gov Nicholls I forget which) and start with a full tank of gas because there really aren%26#39;t many facilities until you reach Biloxi along the highway, I%26#39;m sure there are in the towns themselves. If you enjoy the beach, this trip will be a blast. As I stated in my previous post, you%26#39;ll get to enjoy the beaches without the commercialization usually associated with them and they are gorgeous. Unlike the panhandle of Florida, you can view the beach along the entire highway, not just catch quick glimpses through condos and hotels. Enjoy your trip to both New Orleans and to the beach. The two hours you have scheduled for each way are sufficient to reach the Mississippi Gulf Coast.