Fuel up for a long day in Atchafalaya country in downtown Arnaudville, right on the historic Bayou Teche. Myran’s Maison de Manger will set you up waterside with a home-style breakfast like your mama makes. A neighborhood staple that’s been around for almost fifty years, Myran Chautin’s café is where you go to meet locals, and to hear the latest small-town gossip. We recommend the Egg-o-Myran: scrambled eggs with chopped ham and plenty of cheese.
Next, you’ll head just down the street to NUNU Arts & Culture Collective—a historic warehouse-turned-art gallery/music venue/gathering place. Here lies the beating heart of St. Martin Parish’s, and much of Acadiana’s, creative community. Inside is a working gallery with rotating exhibitions by local artists, as well as a giftshop with curated collections of visual art, pottery, textiles, and more, created by Louisiana artists. On any given day you might walk into a round table conversation in Kouri-Vini (Louisiana Creole) or by local Indigenous tribes, or a live music performance, or an artist’s workshop. Regardless, there will almost certainly be a gathering of locals sitting together near the kitchen, sipping coffee, likely speaking French. Expect to be ushered into it—Bienvenue à Arnaudville.
Thanks in large part to NUNU, which has been offering community and resources to creatives in the rural area for almost twenty years—Arnaudville and its surroundings have since become a haven for artists and creative ideas. One of these is Brandon and Aurore Ballengée’s Atelier de la Nature, down the road in Henderson—a twenty-five-acre nature reserve where the arts and science come together in the form of sculpture gardens, STEM festivals, eco-workshops, and more. If there are no scheduled events while you’re visiting, it’s still worth exploring the site’s free nature trails, which wind through re-natured environments with educational signage describing the ecosystem and its wildlife.
Atelier de la Nature
If visiting during winter or spring, start looking forward to an obligatory boiled crawfish lunch. These critters put Louisiana on the culinary map and are an enormous part of the local economy—and you’re standing where it all began; Henderson is the site of the first commercial crawfish pond in Louisiana, and the place where it was first served in a restaurant. Learn more about this history, the process of raising and harvesting crawfish, and the impact of the multi-billion-dollar industry during Jude Mequet’s Team Voodoo Crawfish Tours. On his thirty-eight-acre family farm, Marquet will guide you through the crawfish farming business, from pond to plate.
After the tour, with all your new crawfish knowledge in hand, sit down for lunch at either Crawfish Town USA or Pat’s Fisherman’s Wharf. Both spots have been around for decades, serving steaming platters of local seafood—including, of course, local crawfish by the pound. If you’re not feeling mudbugs, not to fear; the menus also offer étouffées, crab cakes, gumbos, oysters, and more.
Crawfish platter at Pat’s Fisherman’s Wharf
For afternoon activities, you’ve got two choices: Dinosaurs and go-carts, or swamp tours and Cajun dancing (or, dinosaurs and swamp tours, go carts and Cajun dancing—you get the jist).
If you’ve got kids on board, the Prehistoric Park in Henderson is hard to pass up. The interactive, educational exhibits here include an animatronic Allosaurus, Dimetrodon, and Dimorphodon—plus many more. Immersed in a world millions of years past, kids can sift through sand to discover fossils or gems, and create their own stuffed dinosaur toy to bring home.
Just next door is the Cajun Fast Track, the largest arcade in the area—where kids (and adults) run wild on a go kart racetrack, compete for the title of mini golf champion, or battle it out at laser tag.
If you’re itching to get out into the Atchafalaya Basin, though, head east, where swamp tour guides are waiting. Whether you opt for an airboat or an intimate skiff, a focus on photo-ops or a chance to check fishing nets, a tour in English or French—expect an unforgettable, educational immersion into the wilds of South Louisiana. Drifting through the Southern gothic swampscapes, expect to see dozens of species of birds, turtles sunning on fallen cypress trees, and alligator aplenty. A job requirement of local tour guides is storytelling prowess, so expect to be regaled with legends and lore of life on the water. Some companies to consider are Atchafalaya Basin Swamp Landing & Swamp Tours, River of Swamps, Cajun Customized Excursions, and McGee’s Swamp Tours.
Before heading back to town, make plans to take part in Jourdan Thibodeaux and Yvette Landry’s Soko Music Tours Experience at Cypress Cove Landing. Against the backdrop of the Basin, the two popular local musicians discuss the history, traditions, and roots of their ancestral Cajun and Creole songs and stories. Take advantage of the chance to learn a few steps to a Cajun waltz from these professionals, or try your hand at joining in the music with the T-fer (triangle).
Craft brews at Bayou Teche Brewery
If you can make it back to Arnaudville before dark, you can watch the sun set while enjoying a cold one (or two) of Bayou Teche Brewing’s craft beers. These are some of the most popular locally-brewed beers in the state, and they are best paired with wood fired pizzas from the onsite oven, called The Cajun Saucer. Try the Alien Autopsy—with mozzarella, andouille, tasso, and jalapeño bonbons; or the Streetcar Named Diablo, which features fried pork skins and arrives laced with sriracha honey. If you’re lucky, it’ll be a live music night, so you can close out your time on the Teche with a good Cajun love song. By now, you might even know the words.
Get more ideas for your next trip to St. Martin Parish at cajuncountry.org.
