Cajun Country offers visitors a unique experience

Adventures in culture, food and music await in south Louisiana, where life is on the spicy side.

By LouisianaTravel.com staff

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CT Zydeco Festival

When the French-speaking, Catholic Acadians of Eastern Canada refused to swear allegiance to the British crown in the mid-1700s, their penalty was deportation. The king of Spain offered them land grants in the Louisiana Territory – in alligator-filled swamps and barren prairies. Cajun Country folks have thrived along these swamps, marshes and prairies for two-and-a-half centuries. They don’t live in floating boathouses much anymore, but down in Golden Meadow, visitors can watch the shrimp boats chugging up the bayou, then scarf down some of those yummies in a bowl of gumbo in Houma that night.

Avery Island, where you can tour Jungle Gardens or the TABASCO® Country Store & Visitor Center, is a garden paradise. Over in Lake Charles, during its Contraband Days Pirate Festival, pirates make the mayor of that fair city walk the plank!

Sample both Cajun and Creole food in the many classic places around Acadiana for the ultimate in gumbo, étouffée and po-boys (save room for bread pudding). Try Prejean’s Restaurant in Lafayette; Café des Amis or the legendary Mulate's® in Breaux Bridge. Along the road in Lafourche Parish, look for stands selling fresh Creole tomatoes, boudin and andouille sausage, or cracklins.

In Lafayette, the “Capital of Cajun Country,” catch such events as Cinema on the Bayou International Film Festival, or Festival International de Louisiane, which honors the Cajun-French connection through music, food and art. In Morgan City, the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival pays tribute to two important local industries. On Labor Day weekend, Opelousas, birthplace of Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier, hosts the Zydeco Festival. And you'll want to visit the Zydeco Hall of Fame in Lawtell, where musicians Boozoo Chavis and Rockin’ Dopsie often played.

Up in Eunice, there's the Liberty Theatre/Rendez-Vous Des Cajuns Music Show and the Cajun Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Those who prefer games will feel they’ve hit the jackpot in Cajun Country casinos and horseracing tracks in Lake Charles, Vinton, Kinder and Opelousas. In Jennings, the Zigler Museum exhibits dioramas of local wildlife and hundreds of artworks. Exotic and ornate Fabergé eggs made in the small town of Maurice are displayed in the Vivian Alexander Gallery & Museum. History and art collide at Houma’s Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum.

Modern-day Cajuns’ great-great-(and on back)-grandparents refused to drop their Catholic beliefs and certainly didn’t want to bow to the English crown, so they were forced to leave their Canadian home in Acadie, finally making their way to Catholic, Spanish Louisiana. The British government belatedly offered written acknowledgement of their suffering and displacement in 2003.

Well, they would be called “Acadians” but for the way the English language down here gets boiled down with a French accent and a pinch of Southern drawl, with the word ending up “Cajuns.” The Acadian Memorial in St. Martinville remembers the 3,000 people who fled Canada and settled in Louisiana with a wall of names and a museum that tells their story.

Interests: Cajun | Food & Resturaunts