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Lafayette Conventions, Trade Shows, Conferences and Meetings
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LAFAYETTE , 135 miles northwest of New Orleans on I-10, is geographically central in Cajun country, and is the key city for its oil business. Originally named Vermilionville, after the orangey bayou nearby, it was renamed in 1844 in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette. Today Lafayette is a quiet place, a city with a small-town feel and no real centre. It does, however, offer some lively Cajun history and good restaurants - and makes the best base for exploring the swamps, bayous and dance halls of the surrounding region.
In the center of Lafayette, such as it is, stands the Romanesque St John's Cathedral , 914 St John St, and the old cemetery , where the crumbling raised graves include that of Jean Mouton , the town's Cajun founder. Each of the magnificent branches of the 500-year-old Cathedral Oak opposite, spreading over 200ft, weighs seventy tons. Three blocks north, the small Lafayette Museum , at 1122 Lafayette St (Tues-Sat 9am-4.30pm, Sun 1-4pm; $3), was the "Sunday home" - a townhouse used after Mass, before the family returned to their plantation - of Jean's son Alexandre, Louisiana's first Democratic governor. It's now filled with family memorabilia, Civil War relics and Cajun Mardi Gras costumes.
The campus of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette , south of the center next to the Student Union, boasts a swamp - complete with alligators, turtles, water birds and tattered Spanish moss. Its art museum showcases local artists and Southern folk art (Tue-Fri 9am-4pm, Sun 2-5pm; $2).
The great energies Lafayette has put into tourism since the oil slump have created two excellent reconstructions of early Cajun communities. Vermilionville , at 1600 Surrey St across from the airport, is the most accessible, and impressive, of the two, extending its scope to explore the culture of the early Creoles as well as the Cajuns (Tues-Sun 10am-4pm; $8). Set in 23 attractive acres on the Bayou Vermilion, it's a living history site, filled with craftspeople demonstrating traditional skills. A large replica of a rice mill serves as a theater , hosting storytellers, plays and noisy fais-do-dos , while in the simple chapel you can hear talks on religious traditions, from voodoo to the traiteurs , or Cajun healers. Cooking demonstrations are staged several times a day (10.30am, 12.30pm & 1.30pm), and the restaurant next to the theater serves good Cajun lunches (Mon-Fri 11am-2pm, Sat & Sun 11am-3pm).
Ten miles or so from the CVB, Lafayette's other folk-life museum, the smaller Acadian Village at 200 Greenleaf Drive (daily 10am-5pm; $7), depicts early nineteenth-century Cajun life along the bayous. Original homes and reproductions of other structures - including a blacksmith's shop and a chapel - line a sluggish bayou set in gardens and woodlands, and are filled with traditional furnishings and crafts.
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