AndiA couple weekends ago, I happened to be in Lafayette for day while my son had an audition. Before this weekend, I had only passed through this city on the way to New Orleans. Well let me tell you, this city is worth a stop! Lafayette has more than enough activities to fill an entire day!
For a light breakfast, I stopped at Poupart Bakery. Their cheese Danishes were delicious. I could have eaten more, with all the tasty looking options but I wanted to save room for other places.
Avery Island
Avery Island was my first destination. It is about a 30 minute drive from Lafayette. This island, which is not an island, sits on a large dome of salt and looks like an island from the sky. The Tabasco Factory and Jungle Gardens located here.
Tabasco Factory
I went to the Tabasco Factory Tour and Museum first. The museum has a lot of information about how the company started and about the island in general. The pepper sauce was invented in 1868 and has been run by the family for five generations. Tabasco has three simple ingredients: natural vinegar, salt mined from Avery Island, and aged red peppers.
Self Guided Tour
The tour is self-guided through different buildings. They give you a map when you purchase a ticket, but they do have signs around to help you navigate through the tour.
The greenhouse shows the peppers growing. They used to harvest all the peppers on the island, but have since started harvesting in Central and South America. Those areas have more predictable weather.
The peppers are aged for three years in these barrels. They show a video on how they make the barrels ready for the aging process.
The next area is the blending, which has a strong vinegar smell. They show a video on how vinegar is blended in with the pepper mash.
Next up are exhibits about Avery Island and the salt mine. Avery Island is currently being mined for salt. The salt in the Tabasco Sauce comes from here.
Factory Tour-
At the next building you can watch the factory workers bottle the Tabasco sauce through large viewing windows….if you come Monday through Friday. I visited on a Sunday, so there was nothing to see. A little disappointing, but I’ll get over it, lol.
At the end are giant bottles of Tabasco sauce, perfect for a great photo opportunity!
The gift shop has a plethora of Tabasco products for the Tabasco lovers out there. A restaurant is next door, but I was there before it opened for lunch. I read great reviews.
It took about an hour to see the museum and walk the factory tour.
Jungle Island
Jungle Island is very close to the Tabasco Factory, so I went straight there.
There is a combo ticket option for the Tabasco Factory and Jungle Island. If you pay for your tickets at the factory, make sure to stop at the Jungle Island gift shop to pick up a map of the gardens.
Jungle Island is a three mile loop through different landscape areas. You can either walk the whole three miles or drive it and pull over at different stops. I was on a time crunch, so I chose to drive.
When you first drive in, there is a beautiful area filled with large oak trees. I LOVE trees! Awesome trees. Trees with character. They were all over the island and some of them were huge!!! They had to be hundreds of years old.
Driving through the alligator area was a little disappointing, since I did not find any. Before I left people told me to run zig zagged if an alligator started chasing me. I didn’t exactly want to put that bit of information to use, but it would have been cool to see one in the wild.
Moving on, I saw the Budda Statue. There was a couple there that had me do a mini photo shoot for them. She kept wanting to add in one more picture and I was just nice enough to humor her.
It was a pretty drive and I’m glad I took the time to see it.
Lunch
By this time, I had to go back into the city to pick up my son for lunch. Whenever we visit somewhere new, I always research and find out what the best restaurants are. I don’t do chains, unless it’s in certain region not in my area and I always go for something new. I had a couple places lined up, but apparently, I didn’t research enough to find out that they were closed on Sundays! Ugh. I was so bummed. Austin not so much, he doesn’t like trying new things. We ended up eating at Chuy’s Tex Mex…good, but not original to Louisiana.
Rip Van Winkle’s Home & Gardens
After I dropped Austin back off, I headed to Rip Van Winkle’s Home and Gardens. These gardens are beautiful!! I strolled through all the pathways and enjoyed the walk. I ended up not doing the house tour, because I was on a time crunch. The house tours start on the hour, every hour. I recommend showing up 30 minutes prior to tour time. It’s more than enough time to buy your ticket and walk the grounds to get to the house.
There are gorgeous oak trees here as well. I also saw several peacocks roaming the property.
Rookery Road
Lake Martin and Rookery Road were next. There are a couple of swamp tours that go through this lake/ marsh/swamp?? Not sure what the difference is, but I know that you will learn about it on the boat tour. Unfortunately, they only schedule a couple tours per day, and I missed them both. This is on my bucket list, so it will happen!
You can also go kayaking. I love kayaking and kayaking with gators would have been awesome! But I was by myself and I didn’t want to chance it in case something crazy happened…like being eaten by an alligator! Anyways, next time!
On the reviews I read, some of them said that you could see gators from Rookery road. I did not experience that at all. I even got out and walked on a boardwalk near the front of the street…nothing.
Next time, I’ll book a swamp tour so I can definitely see gators.
Downtown
I drove around downtown Lafayette before picking up Austin. The place was deserted, hardly any people walking around or stores open. I’m going to assume there is more going on the during the week.
The Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist was a beautiful historic building.
The massive oak tree next to it was amazing as well. It was huge! Said to be 500 years old.
Austin’s audition happened to be on the campus of the University of Louisiana. Since I still had a few minutes to spare, I roamed around until I found their swamp. There’s a swamp on campus!! So cool. I learned that once a year they let students go kayaking in there. These were the only gators I saw the whole day and they were on the small side. They were hanging out with some turtles on a landing in the middle of the swamp.
We stopped at Bordon’s Ice Cream on the way out of Lafayette. It’s a cute little ice cream shop and very busy!
Recommendations for Lafayette-
Here are a couple recommendations I was given before coming that I did not have time for:
To do:
Vermilionville- Cajun & Creole living history museum
Acadian Village- similar to above, but more of a guided tour
Crystal Rice Plantation Heritage Farm- learn about farming rice, museum and home tour
Longfellow Evangeline historical site-museum, beautiful grounds
Places to eat:
Olde Tyme Grocery- Closed on Sunday
Johnson’s Boucaniere- Closed on Sunday
Taco Sisters- Closed on Sunday
Blue Dog Café
Meche’s Donuts
Word of warning, if you have flexibility in your schedule, I would plan a weekday in Lafayette, because several places are closed on Sundays. I still had a great time, but I would have preferred a different day if given an option.
Lafayette has some beautiful areas to stroll around. I’m glad I had a day to enjoy this city.
Have you been to Lafayette before? Do you have any recommendations?
Hi! My name is Erica and I was born and now live in New Orleans, LA. It was fantastic to city located in Louisiana in a travel blog. It is not that common. The blog was well written and contained many facts.
Way to go!
Erica
Hi Erica! Thanks so much for reading! I was surprised how much I liked the area. New Orleans seems like it would be a fun place to live!