Frogs, ducks, rice and crayfish all have one thing in common – they are all ‘capitals’ in Louisiana’s Cajun country, just a couple of hours from New Orleans. This is an itinerary that uncovers the best in Cajun cuisine and music – and for a good ol’ Cajun lagniappe throws in hot sauce and alligator swamps. Let the good tyres roll!

Total drive approx 722 kms

Day 1. Depart: New Orleans  O/night: Lafayette Approx: 260 kms
Leave New Orleans early, driving north-west on Interstate 10 until you reach Causeway Boulevard, where you turn right and head for Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. The causeway bridge stretches for 38.28 kilometres. Taking this route is not the shortest, but it gives you the opportunity to say you have driven across the longest bridge over water in the world. Or have you?

Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s longest bridge over water for years -- until the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in China came along recently and staked its claim. Lake Pontchartrain Causeway disagreed and insisted it was still the longest.

The problem was neatly resolved by Guinness, who diplomatically created an extra category, and now Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is credited as being ‘the longest continuous bridge over water’.

Covering an area of 1,600 square kilometres, Lake Pontchartrain is the second-largest inland saltwater lake in the United States, after the Great Salt Lake in Utah; though purists may point out that as an estuary to the Gulf of Mexico, Pontchartrain is not a true lake.

Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is a toll bridge, but those travelling north drive free of charge. Don’t confuse it with the Pontchartrain Expressway which is a section of Interstate 10.

Once across the causeway in Mandeville, head west on Interstate 12 to Baton Rouge, where you merge with Interstate 10 -- a drive of just over a hundred kilometres,  Keep driving to Lafayette. You will return to New Orleans via Baton Rouge at the end of this journey, when there will be ample time to do a little sightseeing in the Louisiana state capital.

The trip from New Orleans to Lafayette should take you about three hours in good traffic, which gives you time to visit the Vermilionville Living History Museum & Folklife Park on your arrival. As you come into Lafayette turn left on the NE Evangeline Throughway and you’ll come to it on your left, just before Lafayette Regional Airport.

Vermilionville Living History Museum & Folklife Park sits on the banks of a bayou and is within easy reach of downtown Lafayette. The grounds, which are laid out as an historic village with eighteen buildings, including six restored original homes, take you back to the early Cajun and Creole way of life. Costumed craftsmen slip into character as they talk to you of bygone days in the bayou. The museum is open daily (closed Mondays) from 10.00 to 16.00.

If you are ready for lunch, there is a popular (and inexpensive) Cajun café called Cuisine de Maman at the park, where a bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo, a slice of pecan pie and a coffee or cold drink will set you back about $10. Cuisine de Maman is open from 11.00 to 14.00 on weekdays and hour later at weekends (also closed Mondays).

Cajuns are proud of their unique southern Louisiana lifestyle. To understand them you have to delve into their history. Back in the early 1600s they lived a spartan life as French settlers in the remote settlement of Acadia, on the southeast coast of Canada -- now known as Novia Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. For more than a hundred years, the Acadians lived in near isolation as farmers, trappers and fishermen.

Then came the French and Indian War in the mid-1700s, when the British expelled them from their homes and torched their villages, scattering thousands of destitute Acadians across North America, the Caribbean and France. Hundreds of Acadian families made their way to Louisiana, where they became known as Cajuns.

It was not long before Cajun music began to take shape. First it was the fiddle and old French folk dances, then came the German settlers with their accordions. African influences also entered into the mix, setting Cajun music and black Creole zydeco music side by side.

Cajun cuisine has been described as rustic and spicy, and an authentic Cajun meal is usually a three-pot affair, with one pot dedicated to the main dish (mostly spiced chicken, shrimps or crayfish), one containing steamed rice, skillet cornbread, or some other grain dish, and the third pot filled with whichever vegetable is plentiful at the time.  Cajun chefs at city restaurants have refined the recipes of the past to come up with what could be called nouvelle Cajun, but deep in Cajun country little has changed in the kitchen.

Lafayette sets a challenge for foodie travellers – it’s said to have more restaurants per capita than any other American city, and many of them specialize in the distinctive Cajun cuisine. As for music, there are numerous clubs and bars in Lafayette that give the stage to up-and-coming Cajun and zydeco performers.

There are plenty of reasons to linger in Lafayette. A new batch of homegrown chefs is delving deep into the region’s robust Cajun culinary roots. Try the The French Press, where the must-have dish is called ‘Sweet Baby Breesus’ (biscuits filled with bacon, fried boudin, and cane syrup).

At Johnson's Boucanière, you’ll find great homemade smoked meat and boudin, Then there's Cochon Lafayette: think fried alligator with chili garlic aioli, smoked boudin with pickled peppers and cinnamon pecan sticky bun for brunch.

For a lively Cajun dinner with music, Prejeans comes high on the list: think huge portions and live Cajun music. Prejeans seafood is prepared Cajun-style, but with a twist all of it's own -- foodie fantasies come true with dishes such as tuna stuffed with shrimp and crayfish and served with a rich cream sauce. A linguistic tip; they call crayfish ‘crawfish’ in this neck of the woods.

Award-winning Prejeans has been called ‘touristy’, but that’s what happens when a restaurant’s cuisine gets noticed by food writers.  And it's not just the food that gets attention-- you can't miss the restaurant's giant stuffed alligator. Prejeans is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner -- and Sunday breakfasts come complete with Cajun music.

For great crayfish and a choice of more than thirty different tapped beers, head for the Jefferson Street Pub. Local food, local beer; a great atmosphere with lots of locals. The pub is closed on Sunday and Monday.

There’s also a big Cajun and zydeco buzz at Grant Street Dancehall, a hundred-year old brick and cypress honky tonk built originally as a fruit warehouse. Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Dizzy Gillespie have all played at Grant Street, but it remains essentially Cajun in style.

For something more down-and-dirty, the Blue Moon Saloon & Guesthouse is a popular hang out for Lafayette music lovers. Some of the best local bands, Cajun and otherwise, play at the Blue Moon, which is located about five blocks from the centre of downtown. Remember – it’s strictly a dress down sort of place.

Lafayette is the quintessential Cajun city and hosts two popular annual festivals: the Festival International de Louisiana in April and Festivals Acadians in October. Both draw thousands of visitors to town, and it’s worth planning your trip around these times: if you do, book your accommodation well in advance.

Accommodation choices. The Juliet Hotel, Bois des Chenes Bed & Breakfast Inn, Clarion Inn, Residence Inn Marriott,

Day 2. Depart: Lafayette  O/night: Abbeville  Approx: 160 kms 
Leaving Lafayette in the morning you are about to visit three ‘Cajun capitals’ before lunch. Take the Interstate 10 west as far as Exit 87 for a quick drive around Rayne, which has become known as the ‘Frog Capital of the World’.

It all began back in the 1880s, when a local chef started selling frogs to New Orleans restaurants. Frog legs are a very popular dish in southern Louisiana. Word soon got around and before long the small town of Rayne was shipping barrels of frog legs to gourmet restaurants around the country.

Those days may be long gone, but it does not stop Rayne holding an annual Frog Festival as a tribute to all things frog. Nearly 30 frog murals decorate the buildings of downtown Rayne. If you are up for a gourmet adventure, Chef Roy’s Frog City Café makes a mean Cajun-style frog leg etouffee.

From Rayne travel a few kilometres west on US 90 to Crowley, the ‘Rice Capital of America’. Rice is the basis of Cajun cooking and no other Louisiana community is as closely tied to the crop as Crowley. The ponds and prairies surrounding the city may now be producing crayfish as well, but it was the rice mills that sprung up at the beginning of the last century that gave Crowley its identity.

Crowley hosts the annual International Rice Festival every October, an event that attracts more than 125,000 people to a fun weekend of Cajun food and music.

Crowley is also home to the Grand Opera House of the South, which years ago attracted some of the world’s top musical talent of the time -- even Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso, the most famous tenor of his generation, took the stage at Crowley’s opera house.

The Grand Opera House of the South hit hard times and was closed for almost seventy years. But now the masterpiece has been brought back to its original splendour and reopened. Tours are available by appointment with a minimum of five people at $5 a person, or a donation of $25 if there are not enough to make up the numbers. The tour would definitely appeal to anyone interested in architecture or musical history.

Continue along US 60 from Crowley until you reach Midland, where you turn left on LA 91 for an eighteen-kilometre drive down to Gueydan -- the Duck Capital of America.

The land around Gueydan is the winter home of thousands of mallards, pintails and teal. Gigantic flocks of geese also surround the hunting areas at that time. The Louisiana waterfowl season runs from November to February and attracts hunters from around the United States and beyond.

The annual award-winning Gueydan Duck Festival is held on the weekend before Labor Day, shortly before the shooting season begins.

Gueydan is named after its founder, Jean Pierre Gueydan who came from a family of prosperous French hoteliers and arrived in the United States as a teenager in 1848. Together with his brother, the young Gueydans made and lost their money in cotton, cattle and sheep before finally striking it lucky with rice.

Jean Pierre Gueydan was also something of an inventor, coming up with a sheep sheering tool and a machine for making cactus edible for livestock, before successfully developing a pumping plant used to improve the water system for irrigating crops.

You will notice the initials AVRICO on the cement railings of the bridges as you enter and leave Gueydan. The letters are an acronym for the Acadia-Vermilion Rice Irrigation Company.

The canal systems that surround the town to irrigate the surrounding farmland, were built by AVRICO, and were later used as the selling point to attract farmers to the area in a brochure that described the reclaimed lands around Gueydan as ‘the Holland of America’.

While in in Gueydan you can tour the Ellis Stansel working rice mill and discover how they raise, harvest, dry mill and package their own labels of rice and flour. Look out for the fifty or so peacocks that roam the mill’s grounds -- not that you could miss them.

From Gueydan continue along LA 14 to Kaplan. If you’re thinking Kaplan does not have a Cajun ring to it; you'd be right. The town is named after Abrom Kaplan, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who made his fortunes in the rice business.

By the turn of the last century, Kaplan had established himself as one of most successful industrialists in Louisiana, owning and operating rice mills in several towns west of the Mississippi River, including a large mill in Crowley.

Kaplan founded the town that bears his name in 1902 after buying the land from a plantation that had fallen on hard times. At the time of his death in 1944, the Kaplan family owned the largest rice irrigation system in the world.

Kaplan has celebrated the region’s French heritage with the biggest annual Bastille Day celebration in Louisiana every year since it became a town. It’s a lively event that includes a re-enactment of the storming of the Bastille.

Both Gueydan and Kaplan have small informative museums that tell the fascinating local history. Were Jean Pierre Gueydan and Abrom Kaplan adventurous entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial adventurers? Drop by the museums and form your own opinion.

Take a detour on your way to Abbeville, which is only a fifteen-minute drive east of Kaplan. Head south to the lock at Intracoastal City. It’s a taste of southern Louisiana’s rural backwaters, a drive of around 60 kilometres that leads you on a loop down to Vermilion Bay before you drive back up to Abbeville.

From Kaplan take LA 35 south to the junction with LA 82. Turn left and continue over to LA 333 where you head south-west to Intracoastal City.

Here’s a foodie tip. Five minutes or so after leaving Kaplan you’ll spot Suire’s (rhymes with ‘beers’) Grocery & Restaurant over to your left, a small white wooden building. It may seem nothing to write home about at first glance, but Suire’s has an impressive reputation for its food, it’s even had the thumbs up from the New York Times in the past.

Shrimp and crayfish po’boys, deep fried catfish and alligator, chicken gumbo, old-fashioned beef and corn stew and home-made pecan pie (the south’s favourite dessert) are just a few of the items on Suire’s menu.

Po’boys are a traditional Louisiana lunch munch, a long baguette stuffed with roast pork, fried shrimp, soft shell crab or catfish.

There’s nothing fancy about the way Suire’s serve their food, but it’s a tasty Cajan treat. You might decide on having lunch, or else pick up one or two goodies from the grocery store for a picnic overlooking Vermilion Bay as you watch the barges glide by. The surrounding marsh is teeming with local flora and fauna so you’ll need your camera and binoculars.

They call it Intracoastal City, but don't expect a bustling metropolis with neon signs and a large, bustling population – it’s a small community that serves the offshore drilling platforms and probably has more heliports than permanent residents. It also acts as a dry dock for the local shrimp fleet.

If you venture further along LA 333 you reach the Leland Bowman Lock on the Intracoastal Waterway, a system that stretches more than 380 kilometres from Florida to Texas. The Intracoastal Waterway keeps salt water from the Gulf of Mexico out of the fresh water supply that serves the farming communities further north, while also acting as an important barge route.

Stay awhile before heading back up to Abbeville: take LA 333 north and continue on LA 82.

The land that is now Abbeville was bought by a French Capuchin missionary back in 1843 for $900. A statue in memory of Father Megret stands in the centre of downtown Magdalen Square, with its large oak trees, fountain and gazebo. Magdalen Place also houses the Abbeville Cultural & Historical Museum & Art Gallery, where you’ll find more exhibits highlighting Cajun culture.

To find out more on what’s going on in Abbeville and nearby towns, drop by the Vermilion Parish Tourist Commission. The office is open weekdays from 08:30 to 16:30, and you'll get a friendly Cajun welcome.

Being close to Vermilion Bay and the Gulf of Mexico has led Abbeville to be known for its oysters and seafood, but it’s eggs that have put the town well and truly on the international map – 5,000 eggs that go into making a giant Cajun omelette every November.

The first omelette was made back in 1984, after three Abbeville dignitaries visited France and the Easter Omelette Festival in Bessieres. There are several other towns and cities around the world that celebrate the omelette, and each year representatives from France, Belgium, Canada, Argentine and New Caledonia turn up in Abbeville to help make the massive Cajun omelette. It is then fed free to the crowds who turn out for the event.

If you're in the mood for juicy oysters, mouth-watering fried seafood or an overstuffed shrimp po-boy, then you've come to the right town. Abbeville is home to several seafood restaurants – for foodie travellers it’s going to mean some tough decisions.

Oyster enthusiasts will enjoy Dupuy’s Oyster Shop, which dates back to 1869, when James Dupuy would harvest his own oysters and sell them for five cents a dozen -- there has, of course, been a substantial increase in the price of Dupuy’s oysters.

As you would guess by its name, Shucks is another Abbeville oyster bar. The restaurant is also known for its crab and crayfish dishes. One of the local favourites is the restaurant’s steak smothered with pan-broiled oysters.

And then there’s Richard’s Seafood Patio, where the crayfish are served in a metal trough. It’s the oldest crayfish patio in town and queues form from early evening for a table.

Most restaurants in Abbeville are open for lunch and dinner.

Accommodation options: Executive Inn Express Abbeville, Best Western Abbeville Inn & Suites, The Caldwell House

Day 3. Depart: Abbeville   O/night: Breaux Bridge  Approx: 90 kms
From Abbeville continue east along LA 14 (also called the Veterans Memorial Drive) to the small community of Erath. The town once had a thriving sugar mill, but that has long since gone. Erath is home to a small but highly informative Acadian museum housing numerous displays and artefacts depicting the life and culture of the people who settled in this area from Nova Scotia. It’s open on weekdays from 13.00 to 14.00 and entrance is free.

A tip for foodies: Big John’s Seafood Patio is in Erath. It’s a true family business -- the owners, their three children, son and daughter-in-law plus two grandchildren all congregate at night to work at the restaurant.

You drive past several crayfish ponds to get to Big John’s, and when you arrive you are confronted with a rough concrete floor, metal crayfish troughs, country music and long neck beer. Big John’s is a down-to-earth good ol’ country place, which adds to the Cajun experience – it’s just the way a crayfish joint should be. As Erath is only a few minutes drive from Abbeville, you might want to make a round trip the previous evening to check it out.

From Erath the road leads on to Delcambre (pronounced del-com), which is known for its shrimping industry. The season runs from May to end July and then mid-August to the end of November. If you pass through Delcambre in those periods you can buy shrimp straight off the boats – and you can even order them online before you arrive. The town’s annual Shrimp Festival is held in the third full weekend of August.

There were some fears after multiple hurricanes and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that the shrimping industry would be wiped out in this part of the world, but Delcambre has overcome the negative image. The fishing fleet is not as big as it once was, but the small port town continues to be a great place for seafood. Delcambre’s fishing fleet also lands crabs and crayfish.

To get from Delcambre to Avery Island stay on LA 14 until you reach Lee Station Road (Par Road 705) to your right. Follow this road (it will veer left and change number at some stage to LA 914) until you come to a junction, where you turn right on to LA 329 and continue driving south to Avery Island – the home of Tabasco hot pepper sauce.

Avery Island is not an island in the traditional sense -- it's located about five kilometres from the nearest open body of water. But it is surrounded on all sides by wetlands -- grassy salt marsh, wooded cypress swamp, or slow-moving, muddy bayous.

You pay a dollar environmental toll fee to cross the ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ bridge to the island. Once over the bridge you come to the Tabasco visitor centre.

When Edmund McIlhenny first planted a handful of Mexican pepper seeds in his in-laws garden over a hundred years ago he could not have realised that it was to be the start of the now famous Tabasco brand hot sauce.

The factory tour is fairly interesting: few people would know that Tabasco is aged in old Jack Daniel’s white oak barrels for three years before being bottled and shipped all over the world to end up in Bloody Mary’s, or sprinkled on oysters. Some like it hot, and for them there’s a souvenir ‘country store’ with a wide array of Tabasco products. You might want to try a Tabasco ice cream.

Touring the Tabasco factory is just one part of the Avery Island experience. For nature lovers the best is still to come -- the island's sprawling gardens with their vast display of seasonal flowers, and (to spice things up) an alligator-filled lagoon.

The thousands of snowy egrets that nest on Avery Island each spring are another attraction. One of the earlier McIlhennys founded a bird colony back in the 1890s to save egrets from being slaughtered by plume hunters, who sold the feathers to milliners for use in making women’s hats.

Ned McIlhenny raised egrets in captivity on Avery Island for a year, and then released them in the autumn to migrate across the Gulf of Mexico. They returned the following spring, starting a migration that continues to this day with thousands of snowy white egrets and other water birds returning each year to Avery Island. The nesting grounds are known as Bird City -- it’s a spectacular sight.

There is a charge to visit the gardens.

From Avery Island retrace your route up LA 329 until you get to LA 14 where you turn right into New Iberia.

Founded by Spaniards in 1779 on the banks of Bayou Teche, New Iberia later became home to French Acadian settlers. Teche is a Chitimacha Indian word that means ‘snake’, which descibes perfectly the bayou's endless twists and turns.

New Iberia’s dedication to preserving its history becomes apparent when you stroll around the restored Main Street and the historic downtown area. Among other things, you’ll come by three old churches of different faiths and a synagogue, a cinema from the 1930s, a masonic lodge and a one-time railroad depot.

History is on display in the Bayou Teche Museum and at Shadows-on-the-Teche, an impressive old sugar planter’s mansion with tall white columns surrounded by towering live oak trees. The property is a National Trust Historic site.

New Iberia celebrates Mardi Gras in traditional style with parades, masked balls and all the carnival trimmings: September sees the Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival; and in October (foodies take note) it’s home to the World Championship Gumbo Cook-Off.

You take LA 31 from New Iberia to St Martinville: it’s about a twenty-minute drive.

The Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site in St Martinville is the oldest state park in Louisiana, founded in 1934. Evangeline was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem set in the time of the expulsion of the Acadians from Canada.

When Longfellow’s Evangeline was ‘identified’ by a Canadian historian as Emmeline LaBiche, somebody suggested that she is buried in the cemetery of St. Martin de Tours in St Martinville. The nearby Evangeline Oak is said to be where Emmeline's boat landed at the end of her long trip from Nova Scotia.

Fact or fiction, it’s a good story and one that draws thousands of romantics to St Martinville.

St Martinville is also home to the Acadian Memorial, with its interesting mural depicting the Acadian arrival in southern Louisiana, with audio stories to bring it all to life. Also drop by the town’s African-American Museum, which outlines the rise and fall of slavery in the area.

Finish the day by continuing along LA 31 to Breaux Bridge to spend the night: it gives you the opportunity to plan an exciting morning boat tour of the Louisiana swamps.

You will probably arrive in Breaux Bridge in the later afternoon: a chance to rest awhile before checking out the local nightlife.

Breaux Bridge lives in something of a time warp, and at times you might think you have been transported back to the 1960s – or even earlier, maybe. The town calls itself the Crawfish Capital of the World (another Cajun capital), and is home of a very popular Crawfish Festival every May, when thousands of foodies converge on the little city to pay homage to Louisiana’s famous crustacean. One of the best known crayfish restaurants is located in Breaux Bridge: you might not give Mulato's a second glance from the road, but it's a foodies' seafood haven (or maybe that should heaven).

Another favourite is located in a barn: Crawfish Town USA, which has carved a name for itself with its boiled crawfish and classic Cajun dishes. It’s located off I-10 at the Henderson/Cecilia  (Exit 115)

You have to remember that you get your best crayfish during the ‘season’, which runs from March until around June. From August to February the shells are harder and not as easy to peel, and though enjoyable as ever they are not quite as succulent.

A lot more crayfish are coming from farms that consist of ponds that are drained and replanted in the summer, reflooded in the autumn and winter, and harvested in the spring. You will come across several crayfish farms on this drive.

Breaux Bridge also has some of the funkiest music spots in southern Louisiana, with much of the emphasis on zydeco. If you plan to be in Breaux Bridge at weekend, there’s a zydeco breakfast at the highly popular Café des Amis (it kicks off at 07.30 in the morning), while on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons La Poussier, opens its doors for a unique Cajun music experience.

La Poussier, which translates as ‘the dust’ got its name because at one time it had a dirt floor that got pretty dusty when people were dancing the Cajun two-step. An authentic Cajun dancehall, La Poussiere has been labelled ‘the Little Cathedral of Cajun Music’ and has served as a cultural icon for more than half a century.

If you are an antique enthusiast there are several shops in Breaux Bridge that will interest you, while art lovers will want to explore the local galleries.

Accommodation options: Holiday Inn Express Breaux Bridge/Henderson, Microtel Inn& Suites, Maison Madeleine

Day 4. Depart: Breaux Bridge  Arrive: New Orleans Approx: 212 kms
An early start to the day to take a boat ride through the Atchafalaya, North America's largest river swamp. It’s listed among the top ten wilderness areas in the United States, and is a highlight of any visit to Cajun country.

The Atchafalaya cypress swamps are the natural habitat of beaver, otters, mink, deer, squirrels and other mammals, as well as close to forty species of birds (some of them endangered species) – and, of course, there are the alligators.

The Atchafalaya Experience and Cajun Country Swamp Tours offer experiences that will give you lasting memories of Cajun country. The family who run the award-winning Atchafalaya Experience also have the Bois des Chenes Bed & Breakfast Inn in Lafayette.

Tours run daily seven days a week year round, weather permitting

After your swamp tour continue on to Baton Rouge; take Interstate 10, it’s about an 80 kilometre drive that will take you a little over an hour in good traffic.

Baton Rouge began life as a military post erected by the French in 1719. The name of the city, however, dates back to 1699, when French explorers came across red cypress trees that had been stripped of their bark to mark the hunting ground boundaries of local Choctaw Indians.

If you want the best view of Baton Rouge head for the Observation Deck at the Louisiana State Capitol, the tallest capitol in the United States – there is no argument about that. The 34-storey art deco building is 137 metres high. The Observation Deck is on the 27th floor and entrance is free.

Louisiana's Old State Capitol is a few blocks south of the current capitol facing the mighty Mississippi, a unique blend of Gothic and Victorian architecture known as the ‘castle-on-the-river’. It houses exhibits that shed light on Louisiana’s very colourful and often shady political past, the sort of place budding John Grishams would find inspirational. Climb the cast iron staircase and view its stained glass cathedral dome. The old capitol also has free admission.

Spend some more time exploring Baton Rouge or head back to New Orleans, continuing along Interstate 10, which will lead you along the south side of Lake Pontchartrain.

*So what does ‘lagniappe’ mean in the introduction? It’s what Cajuns call a ‘bonus’ – and there are plenty of those along this route.