This morning before we headed out we took a quick drive around Lafayette. We stopped at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, a historic Roman Catholic cathedral. It was the first church in the Lafayette Parish, founded in 1821 on property donated by Jean Mouton, built in the Romanesque Revival style. Cool-looking, isn't it?
Behind the cathedral is the St. John Cemetery — the oldest in the city of Lafayette. The high water table in South Louisiana makes above ground burial almost a necessity.
The tomb of Jean Mouton, who donated the property for the church, is in this cemetery, along with his son, Alexandre Mouton, governor of Louisiana from l843 to l846, and his grandson, J. Alfred Mouton, a West Point graduate and general in the Civil War.
More Moutons:
Also, this enormous oak tree next to the cathedral! It's almost 500 years old, it's trunk is 9 feet in diameter, and has a circumference of 28 feet 8 inches. It's about 126 feet high with a spread of 210 feet across. (Click picture to enlarge a bit.)
After traipsing around the cemetery for 20 minutes or so, we headed over to the Olde Tyme Grocery to get the shrimp po'boys we'd been hearing about in almost everything we researcged about Lafayette. This place is worth all the mentions. (Olde Tyme Grocery comes up as the #1 rated restaurant in several review sites we visit…Yelp, Trip Advisor, Urban Spoon….)
And they aren't kidding about the shrimp po'boys. They were fabulous. Well, the large one that we split was fabulous. The other one is in the fridge for later.
This place does a very brisk and efficient business and it was fun just to watch 'em work!
Heading out into Cajun country/the Bayou Teche today on the way to New Orleans!
