On Friday we did the top two things that were on my wish list, despite the fact that they were in opposite directions! There are many former sugar cane plantations along the Mississippi. My book (and word-of-mouth) said that if we were to go to just one, we should go to Laura, a Creole plantation, so that is where we headed! Creole in this context means pre-Louisiana Purchase, born in the colony, French-speaking. There were many people in the area before 1803 – French, Spanish, Native Americans, Germans, others – all French-speaking, and all fall under the category of Creole. The Laura owners were from France, and they owned and operated the plantation for about 100 years; for three generations, the women of the family ran the plantation. A typical Creole house has a ground-level cellar for storage. The office and living spaces are up a flight of stairs; there’s no second story above that. The house is surrounded by porch and the rooms are entered from the outside. A typical house has three rooms in the front and three in the back, with no hallway. The rooms open not only to the outside but to each other, for maximum air flow (though not much in the way of privacy!). No closets, no bathrooms, no kitchen (the kitchen is in an outbuilding). Very interesting! Laura (unlike other plantation tours, so we hear) also talks about the slave quarters and the slave way of life; after emancipation, many of the slaves stayed as sharecroppers. With no other skills, no mobility, no education, and debt, they didn’t have many options – and they didn’t necessarily have a better life once they were free. The only sugar grown there now is in the decorative cane-juice kettles.
If you took a package tour from one of the hotels, you’d probably go to Laura and its neighbor, Oak Alley – a Georgian mansion, so something different. But we had miles to go, so we had time for just the one. I’d love to see more another time! And in looking at the map, I realized we might have been halfway to Baton Rouge at Laura – perhaps another state capital is a possibility. The Laura tour guide told us not to bother with the River Road – it sounds romantic but is slow and there’s not much to see. We stopped for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant – no sandwich, but fantastic non-sandwich Vietnamese food – which was right near our next destination.
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park has five remote sites. I had been to one, Chalmette Battlefield, last time. The three I haven’t been to are the Acadian Prairie Cultural Center, the Acadian Wetlands Cultural Center, and the Acadian Cultural Center, which we were told was halfway between the Prairie and the Wetlands, with elements of each. The one we went to that afternoon was the one with natural beauty and history – the Barataria Preserve. Wetlands, swamp, bayou, canal – we walked on boardwalk trails past cypress, palmetto, cutgrass, Spanish moss, and other trees and flowers. We saw some fauna too – egret, great blue heron, deer. Beautiful!
We got back to town, had dinner, and went to Preservation Hall for jazz – this is something I didn’t do in March, and don’t think I did in my previous visits. People line up outside, go in for a 45-or-so-minute set – there are a few seats and many standees – and then are cycled out so that another bunch can come in. Great music! One set was enough anyway – we had to get up early the next day. We had walked along the riverfront and along Bourbon Street the night before, just to take an after-dinner stroll, and that was the extent of our nightlife. I also made it through a New Orleans trip without beignets or chicory café au lait at Café du Monde!
No comments:
Post a Comment