Driving down from Alexandria toward New Orleans we started talking about what we wanted to do once we got there. On the top of our list was visit a plantation and go on a swamp tour. Yeah, we’re real party animals, I know. As with just about everything else in the USA, there are either way too many of something or none at all. In the case of the outskirts of New Orleans and Baton Rouge there are plantations aplenty and no real direction as to which one is worth visitng and which one is better viewed from the pages of a book. Fortunately the AAA book on Louisiana and Mississippi had a list of “gems” that included two plantations that were along our route, sort of. They were the Laura and Oak Alley plantations. Based on the descriptions in the book we picked Oak Alley. It turned out as we drove there that Laura and Oak Alley are literally right next to one another (as in neighbours) so if we had come earlier we could have done them both. But we only had time for one so Oak Alley it was.

The Magic of Oak Trees

Sometimes I get lost in nature and end up just staring. Such was the case when we entered the plantation grounds just as it was when Jacques Telesphore started building the estate back in the 1830s: Coming up to the main house is an alley walled by two rows of 300 year old majestic oak trees. If you’ve ever seen old oak trees you know what I’m talking about. From the ground up they are right out of gothic fairy tales (probably why they shot parts of the movie Interview With The Vampire at the plantation). The huge trunks are clad in intricate folds of bark and thick moss where the sun paints faces and patterns. The branches reach out like massive fingers, sometimes to the sky, sometimes to the ground, carrying canopies of leaves that lend shade and calm to the ground below. The effect is spellbinding no matter what weather. In our case it was overcast and the diffused light made the entire scene unreal. And as always I took way too many photos. Ah, the curse of digital cameras.

A Scene of Dreams Crushed

Our guide Cathy in an authentic costume

Visiting Oak Alley Plantation will cost you $15 and gets you a tour of the plantation house itself. If you’re cheap or don’t want the tour you can access the grounds on your own from the back. The tour takes about 40 minutes and consists of a guide dressed in period clothing telling you the story of the plantation and its owners; a sad and surprisingly timely story of lost love, financial ruin and historical filanthropy. I’m not going to retell it because if you decide to go it’s the only thing you’ll learn. This is a bit of a spoiler but I think it’s worth knowing: Due to the tragic history of Oak Alley the main house is not what it was when the original owners lived there. It has been restored to authentic period status but there is only one piece of furniture in the entire house that is actually from the original owners. There have also been major structural changes and all of this takes away from the experience. The tour only covers the main house and only mentions the actual plantation operation, slavery and other history in passing. You are also not allowed to take any photos inside the house. Quite disappointing actually.

Later on in our visit to New Orleans we were told that although Oak Alley is the most pictoresque of the plantations, Laura next door has a much more comprehensive tour that also covers the slavery in detail. In hindsight I wish we had gone there instead even though it wouldn’t have produced the great pictures I got.