Oak Alley Plantation

We toured Oak Alley Plantation, in rural Vacherie, LA, with Travis's family on Christmas Eve. Oak Alley is on the westbank of the Mississippi River, meaning we had to cross the Mississippi to get there.

Ladies dressed in plantation garb, complete with ruffly hoop skirts and a "Hi, y'all!" greeted us for our thirty-minute guided tour of the plantation at precisely at three thirty.

The massive nearly 300-year-old oak trees lining the walk and framing the front of the plantation are exactly why the plantation is called Oak Alley plantation. Our guide educated us on the trees before stepping into the home. The twenty-eight evenly-spaced live oak trees, planted in two rows leading from the home to the Mississippi River, were planted in the early 1700s by an unknown settler before the land was purchased for use as a plantation.

The antebellum (a term meaning pre-Civil War) plantation home was beautiful! The Frenchman whom bought the plantation land from his brother-in-law commissioned an architect to build the plantation home. I'm sure the architect's timeless details and excellent planning are a big reason the home was able to be easily restored.

Much of the oral tour I didn't hear. Jillian didn't want to have any part of being held during the tour (but she obviously had to be held to protect the historic home and antiques) and Travis had to take the two boys potty during the very beginning of the tour! Jillian was held against her will by both Travis and I (we passed her back and forth) until we got upstairs and thought we were safe to let her roam supervised just a bit in the hallway. Silly us!

I thought we were going to be the new owners of a very old picture that was hanging just at Jillian's height behind our tour hostess. Jillian charged right up behind the hostess as she was talking about the history of the people in the portraits and smacked both hands right on the glass of the closest picture frame. Aunt Holly was standing nearest Jillian and immediately scooped her up to prevent further disaster. I'm glad Holly was there to get her. I was on the other side of the hostess not within Jillian's reach and almost fainted when she decided to charge the picture! All my mind could see were the dollar signs of how much it would take to pay for a picture like that. Thanks, Holly!

The landscape architecture was just as impressive as the architecture of the home. A formal boxwood garden and a symmetrical series of sidewalk and plantings made the back of the home just as spectacular as the front. The huge, wrap-around porch with columns was breathtaking and to framed the beautiful views from the inside of the house as well as inviting us from the outside in. I definitely want to go back in the late spring/early summer, when everything is in bloom.

A large gift shop, 19th Century bed and breakfast cottages, wedding and banquet facilities as well as a restaurant easily makes Oak Alley a place one could enjoy the whole-day or even overnight.