Swathed in the romance of pirates, voodoo and Mardi Gras, LOUISIANA is undeniably special. Its history is barely on nodding terms with the view that America was the creation of the Pilgrim Fathers; its way of life is proudly set apart. This is the land of the rural, French-speaking Cajuns (descended from the Acadians, eighteenth-century French-Canadian refugees), who live in the prairies and swamps in the southwest of the state, and the Creoles of jazzy, sassy New Orleans . (The term Creole was originally used to define anyone born in the state to French or Spanish colonists - famed in the nineteenth century for their masked balls, family feuds and duels - as well as native-born, French-speaking slaves, but has since come to define anyone or anything native to Louisiana, and in particular its black population.) Louisiana's spicy home-cooked food , regular festivals and lilting French-based dialect - and above all its music ( jazz, R&B, Cajun and its bluesy black counterpart, zydeco) - draw from all these cultures. Oddly enough, north Louisiana - Protestant Bible Belt country, where old plantation homes stand decaying in vast cottonfields - feels more "Southern" than the marshy bayous, shaded by ancient cypress trees and laced with wispy trails of Spanish moss, of the Catholic south of the state.

The French first settled Louisiana in 1682, braving swamps and plagues to harvest the abundant cypress, but the state was sparsely inhabited before its first permanent settlement, the trading post of Natchitoches , was established in 1714. In 1760, Louis XV secretly handed New Orleans, along with all French territory west of the Mississippi, to his Spanish cousin, Charles III, as a safeguard against the British. Louisiana remained Spanish until it was ceded to Napoleon in 1801, under the proviso that it should never change hands again. Just two years later, however, Napoleon, strapped for cash to fund his battles with the British in Europe, struck a bargain with president Thomas Jefferson known as the Louisiana Purchase . This sneaky agreement handed over to the US all French lands between Canada and Mexico, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, for a total cost of $15 million. The subsequent "Americanization" of Louisiana was one of the most momentous periods in the state's history, with the port of New Orleans, in its key position near the mouth of the Mississippi River , growing to become one of the nation's wealthiest cities. Though the state seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy in 1861, there were important differences between Louisiana and the rest of the slave-driven South. The Black Code , drawn up by the French in 1685 to govern Saint-Domingue (today's Haiti) and established in Louisiana in 1724, had given slaves rights unparalleled elsewhere, including permission to marry, meet socially and take Sundays off. The black population of New Orleans in particular was renowned as exceptionally literate and cosmopolitan.

Though Louisiana was not physically scarred by the Civil War, with few important battles fought on its soil, its economy was ravaged, and its social structures all but destroyed. The Reconstruction era, too, hit particularly hard here, with the once great city of New Orleans suffering a period of unprecedented lawlessness and racial violence. In time the economy, at least, recovered, benefiting from the key importance of the mighty Mississippi River and the discovery of offshore oil, but over the last century Louisiana has come to rely more and more heavily upon tourism , centered around New Orleans and Cajun country. And it's not hard to see why: whether canoeing along a moss-tangled bayou, dining in a crumbling Creole cottage on spicy, buttery crawfish, or dancing on a steamy starlit night to the best live music in the world, few visitors fail to fall in love with Louisiana.  TOP

The international airport is in New Orleans; regional airlines serve the rest of the state and surrounding areas. Amtrak trains link New Orleans with New York, Chicago and Memphis, and Los Angeles via Lafayette. Greyhound buses connect the major towns with the rest of the country, and are supplemented by smaller local lines. In addition to the Mississippi's bridges and causeways, ferries cross the river at New Orleans, St Francisville in Cajun country, and at various points along the River Road to Baton Rouge.  TOP

Cajun Country
Cajun country stretches across southern Louisiana from Houma in the east, via Lafayette , the hub of the region, into Texas. It's a region best enjoyed away from the larger towns, by visiting the many old-style hamlets that despite modernization can still be found cut off from civilization in soupy bayous, coastal marshes and inland swamps.

Cajuns are descended from the French colonists of Acadia, part of Nova Scotia, which was taken by the British in 1713. The Catholic Acadians , who had quietly fished, hunted and farmed for more than a century, refused to renounce their faith and swear allegiance to the English king, and in 1755 the British expelled them all, separating families and burning towns. About 2500 ended up in French Louisiana, where they were given land to set up small farming communities, enabling them to rebuild the culture they had left behind. Hunting, farming and trapping, they lived in relative isolation until the 1940s, when major roads were built, immigrants from other states poured in to work in the oil business, and Cajun music , popularized by local musicians such as accordionist Iry Lejeune, came to national attention. Since then, the history of the Cajuns has continued to be one of struggle. The whole region was hit hard by the oil slump; the erosion of coastal wetlands threatens the existence of towns like Houma and Morgan City; the silting up of the Atchafalaya Basin is having adverse effects on fishing and shrimping; and many coastal towns are in the firing line of the devastating hurricanes that hurtle up from the Gulf of Mexico.

However, the favorite Cajun phrase, lache pas la patate - "don't let go of the potato" - is an encouragement not to give up that suits this enduring culture to a tee. The popular image of the Cajuns as partying, fun-loving people is borne out at their many local dances, or fais-do-dos , held mostly at weekends. These singing, dancing celebrations, where everyone is welcome to trip a quick two-step, are good places to encounter this unique culture at close hand, and visitors will find plenty of opportunity to join one. After Roosevelt's administration decreed that all American children should speak English in schools, French was practically wiped out in Louisiana, and the local Creole patois of the older inhabitants, with its strong African influences, was kept alive primarily by music. Since the 1980s, CODOFIL (the council for development of French in Louisiana) has been devoted to preserving the region's indigenous language and culture.

Although Baton Rouge , the capital of Louisiana, is not actually in Cajun country, heading out this way from New Orleans, via the plantations on the banks of the Mississippi, makes a good approach.

North Louisiana
North Louisiana is at the heart of the region known as the Ark-La-Tex , where the cottonfields and soft vocal drawl of the Deep South Bible-belt merges with the ranches, oil and country music of Texas and the forested hills (resplendent in the fall) of Arkansas. Settled by the Scottish and Irish after the Louisiana Purchase, the area is strongly Baptist, with less of a penchant for fun than south Louisiana, though it does share its profusion of festivals.  TOP

South of Lafayette
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.   TOP