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South of Lafayette the towns are less immediately welcoming than those in the Prairie, but the surroundings are undeniably atmospheric: this is bayou country , a marshy expanse of rivers and lakes dominated by the mighty Atchafalaya swamp, where the soupy green waters creep right up to the edges of the highway. Unsurprisingly, the economy is based on fishing and shrimping, with hunting in the forests and sugar fields, but it's also a semi-industrial landscape, with a web of oil pipelines running beneath the waterways, and refineries and corrugated-iron shacks sharing space with neat white Catholic churches. Settled in 1765, old ST MARTINVILLE on the Bayou Teche, off US-90 and 18 miles south of Lafayette, was a major port of entry for exiled Acadians. Hard to believe now, but in the nineteenth century this country town grew to become known as "le petit Paris," filled with French Royalists fleeing the Revolution and re-creating a glittering city life of soirees and balls. It was later decimated by yellow fever, fire and hurricane, and is now a peaceful hamlet, kept going by a trickle of tourists. You'll see a lot of references to "Evangeline". To find out why, head for Evangeline Oak Park , on Evangeline Boulevard where it meets the bayou. Here stands the Evangeline Oak , where real-life Acadian Emmeline Labiche , the inspiration for Longfellow's Evangeline , disembarked after her hard journey from Nova Scotia, only to hear that her lover, Gabriel, was engaged to another. You may find a small group of musicians or storytellers around the tree. Nearby in the park the Museum of the Acadian Memorial (daily 10am-4pm; free) pays tribute to the 3000 refugees displaced from Canada to Louisiana between 1764 and 1788, with a "Wall of Names" listing the settlers. The adjacent African American Museum (daily 10am-4pm; free) focuses on the arrival of Africans, as slaves, into Southwest Louisiana during the 1700s. Further along the bayou boardwalk is the Acadian Memorial itself, with a 30-foot mural marking the Acadians' arrival in Louisiana and a Wall of Names honoring the 3000 refugees. Other sights, such as they are, can be found on or around the town square. The eighteenth-century St Martin de Tours Catholic church , at 133 Main St, contains a gold and silver sanctuary light and intricate carved font said to have been gifts from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; next door, the off-beat Petit Paris Museum exhibits fabulous local Mardi Gras costumes (daily 10am-4pm; $2; tours of museum and church $5). Behind the church, the bronze Evangeline Monument was donated by the producers of the 1929 movie The Romance of Evangeline , and is modeled on Dolores del Rio, its star. Just north of town on Hwy-31, the Longfellow-Evangeline State Commemorative Area (daily 9am-5pm; $2) on the bayou contains an 1815 Creole Plantation House , made with the bousillage mixture (mud, Spanish moss and animal hair) characteristic of early Louisiana buildings, and held together by wooden pegs. If St Martinville's sleepy charm wins you over you might want to stay : the Old Castillo , 220 Evangeline Blvd next to the Evangeline Oak (tel 337/394-4010 or 1-800/621-3017; $50-75), is a comfortable mid-nineteenth-century B&B. Its restaurant serves good home cooking (Mon & Tue 8am-5pm, Wed-Sat 8am-9pm, Sun 8am-2pm). AVERY ISLAND , ten miles southwest of the bayou town of New Iberia along a toll road, is not an island at all, but rather the tip of a massive salt dome. Tabasco sauce is still prepared from a family recipe in the McIlhenny factory here, using the red-hot local peppers (daily 9am-4pm; free). The steamy, 200-acre Jungle Gardens and Bird City (daily 8am-5pm; $5.75) are full of exotic camellias, azaleas and irises, and serve as a sanctuary for blue herons, black ibises and snowy egrets.
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