6 Best Sights in The Great River Road, Side Trips from New Orleans

The closest intact plantation to New Orleans is also the oldest intact plantation in the entire lower Mississippi Valley. It's a simple West Indies–style house, built in 1787–90 by an enslaved builder of mixed race for the Destrehan family; it's typical of the homes built by the earliest planters in the region. It is notable for the hand-hewn cypress timbers used in its construction and for the insulation in its walls, made of bousillage, a mixture of horsehair, Spanish moss, oyster shells, and mud. A costumed guide leads a 45-minute tour through the house furnished with period antiques, starting every half-hour. "The Unheard Voices of the German Coast Tour" is a special two-hour tour offered on Fridays and Saturdays at 10:15 am and 1:15 pm, focusing on the marginalized people of the region—especially enslaved Africans. The grounds also hold exhibits showcasing documents signed by former Presidents, a history of the extraordinary 1811 Slave Revolt, and original slave cabins from a nearby plantation. Demonstrations of crafts such as weaving, barrel-making, or open-hearth cooking occur regularly, and an annual fall festival with music, crafts, and food is held the second weekend in November.

Telling the story of four generations of free and enslaved Creole women, this is a more intimate and better-documented presentation of Creole plantation life than most properties on River Road. The narrative of the guides is built on first-person accounts, estate records, and original artifacts from the Locoul family, who built the simple, Creole-style house in 1805. Laura Locoul, whose great-grandparents founded the estate, wrote a detailed memoir of plantation life, family fights, and the management of slaves. The information from Laura's memoir and the original slave cabins and other outbuildings (workers on the plantation grounds lived in the cabins into the 1980s) provide rare insights into slavery in south Louisiana. The plantation gift shop stocks a large selection of literature by and about slaves and slavery in south Louisiana and the United States. Senegalese slaves at Laura are believed to have first told folklorist Alcée Fortier the tales of Br'er Rabbit; his friend, Joel Chandler Harris, used the stories in his Uncle Remus tales. Tours take place approximately every 40 minutes.

Touring the South's largest existing antebellum mansion will give you an appreciation of the grandeur of the area's plantation homes, but it is lacking in the information it provides about slavery's central role in the construction and maintenance of the estate. Built in 1859, Nottoway's mansion is Italianate in style, with 64 rooms, 22 columns, and 200 windows. The crowning achievement of architect Henry Howard, it was saved from destruction during the Civil War by a Northern officer (a former guest of the owners, Mr. and Mrs. John Randolph). An idiosyncratic, somewhat rambling layout reflects the individual tastes of the original owners and includes a grand ballroom, famed in these parts for its crystal chandeliers and hand-carved columns. As an alternative to the 45-minute guided tour, visitors also can opt for a self-guided and self-paced audio tour. You can stay at Nottaway overnight, and a formal restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily. The plantation is 2 miles north of its namesake, the town of White Castle (you'll understand how the town got its name when you see this vast, white mansion, which looks like a castle).

The most famous of all the antebellum homes in Louisiana is a darling of Hollywood, having appeared in major movies and television productions. Built between 1837 and 1839 by Jacques T. Roman, a French Creole sugar planter from New Orleans, Oak Alley is an outstanding example of Greek Revival architecture and is now owned and operated by the Oak Alley Foundation. The 28 stately oak trees that line the drive and give the columned plantation its name were planted in the early 1700s by an earlier settler. A guided tour introduces you to the grand interior of the manor, but be aware that you're unable to book specific times for your tour, so you may want to arrive early in the day to avoid lengthy lines. Leave time to explore the expansive grounds and visit an excellent slavery exhibit where regularly scheduled conversations with staff members tell the lives of those owned and kept on the plantation, as well as their lives after emancipation. Other exhibits cover the history of sugarcane in the region, the Civil War, and much more. A number of late-19th-century cottages behind the main house provide simple overnight accommodations, and a restaurant is open daily from 8:30 am to 3 pm.

The contributions of African Americans in Louisiana's rural Mississippi River communities come to light through exhibits that explore the slave trade, African American cuisine, the Underground Railroad, free people of color, Reconstruction, the rural roots of jazz, and more.

An intriguing variation on the standard plantation style, with galleries resembling the decks of a ship, the San Francisco Plantation seems to have inspired a new architectural term: "Steamboat Gothic." The house, completed in 1856, was once called "St. Frusquin," a pun on a French slang term, sans fruscins, which means "without a penny in my pocket"—the condition its owner, Valsin Marmillion, found himself in after paying exorbitant construction costs. Valsin's father, Edmond Bozonier Marmillion, had begun the project, and according to lore, his design for the house was inspired by the steamboats he enjoyed watching along the Mississippi. Upon his father's death, Valsin and his German bride, Louise von Seybold, found themselves with a plantation on their hands. Unable to return to Germany, Louise brought German influence to south Louisiana instead. The result was an opulence rarely encountered in these parts: ceilings painted in trompe-l'oeil, hand-painted toilets with primitive flushing systems, and cypress painstakingly rendered as marble and English oak. Tour guides impart the full fascinating story on the 45-minute tour through the main house and attempt to tell the parallel story of the enslaved population forced to labor in the house and throughout the plantation. An authentic one-room schoolhouse and a slave cabin have been installed on the grounds, which you can tour at your leisure.