Lafayette

Location: Vermilionville, Lafayette, Louisiana, USA

Summary: On our way to New Orleans, we stopped in Lafayette overnight. Before stopping for the night, we had a brief visit to Vermilionville, it was quite interesting, but we only stopped to look around for about an hour.

Vermilionville

Tucked along the banks of the Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, Vermilionville is a beautifully recreated 18th–19th century Cajun and Creole village that brings Louisiana’s early settler history to life. The moment you step through the gates, the modern world fades away and you’re surrounded by wooden cottages, live oaks draped in moss, and the gentle sound of zydeco or fiddle music drifting from a porch.

The village is made up of restored and reconstructed buildings, homes, workshops, a schoolhouse, a chapel, each furnished as it would have been in the 1800s. Costumed artisans demonstrate traditional crafts like spinning, woodworking, and boat building, and they’re always happy to chat about how families lived, cooked, worked, and survived in the bayou country.

What made Vermilionville special was the atmosphere: it felt lived‑in rather than staged. Chickens wandered between the houses, pirogues rest by the water, and the smell of authentic Cajun cooking often floated from the café. It’s a peaceful, slow-paced place that gives you a real sense of the culture that shaped southern Louisiana long before highways and high-rises.

Dinner & Homicide detectives.

This evening Dave and I went walked to a restaurant not far from our hotel and one of the other people on the trip, Neil came with us. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but we all sat eating dinner, chatting and having a couple of beers. At an adjoining table was a man on his own and he began talking to us and after we had finished our dinner, he joined us for a drink.

It turned out he was staying in the same hotel us as and was there for a weekend convention with dozens of other people. When we had finished our beer, he asked how we had got to the restaurant and when we told him we had walked, he offered us a lift back to the hotel, which we all gratefully accepted. When we went outside, he opened the door to a large police cruiser, a four by four with crash bars, with all the lights markings and a shot gun across the dashboard. He quickly explained that he was the head of the homicide department in New Orleans and the convention at our hotel was for around two dozen sheriffs from all over the area. Dave and Neil got in the back, and he let me ride shotgun, literally, sitting next to him in the front.

When we got back to the hotel there were police cars everywhere, it would have been quite worrying to anyone turning up and seeing them all there, but when we had originally arrived at the hotel on our coach, there had been none at all. When we got back the hotel Neil excused himself and Dave and I went for a beer in the hotel bar with our new friend, the New Orleans Homicide Chief. He knew the hotel and led us to the bar and as we sat down at the bar lots of other men there said hello to him. They were all sheriffs. We sat drinking for a couple of hours and Dave decided to go to bed and left me in the bar. The Chief introduced me to a lot of the sheriffs, and we soon switched from beer to shorts. He was surprised that an Englishman would drink Wild Turkey bourbon but suggested I try one called Knob Creek. It was very nice and he told me, I don't know how true it was, that it wouldn't show up on a breath test if stopped and breathalysed. I told him I wouldn't be driving anyway as we were all on the coach with around 40 others and going to New Orleans in the morning.

I sat drinking with him and a couple of Sherrif's until about 04:30 in the morning before I left and went to bed. Before I left, he gave me his business card and told me if I got into any trouble in New Orleans, no matter what it was, to call him and he would get me out of jail or help me out. I laughed but thanked him anyway. I kept that card in my wallet for years in case I needed it but never did. It was great pulling it out to show people every now and then and tell them the tale of how I made friend with the Head of homicide in New Orleans.