“A very comfortable stay”
Initially I chose this hotel because a phone conversation with the desk clerk convinced me that it's within walking distance of a music festival I planned to visit. Technically, that was true, but practically it was quite a schlep - just shy of a mile - through some pretty deserted areas at night. Truth is, no hotel or motel is really very close to Girard Park, so it's good that we rented a car.
That matter aside, my travel mate and I were very pleased with the free parking, the complimentary coffee in the lobby each morning and especially the VERY comfortable, firm beds. After a day of dancing to Zydeco and Cajun music, it was a real treat to clean up and sink into such luxury. That amenity was, by itself, worth the price differential between this and other Lafayette hotels I'd stayed in on previous visits. Lafayette is a small enough city that the hotel location wasn't a major impediment to our passing a good time in the capital of Acadiana - the festival, good restaurants, shops and services all lie within a 7-mile radius.
Area recommendations
Lafayette is the regional hub of Southwest Louisiana - home to the music of the hardworking, down-to-earth Creoles and Cajuns who pepper their songs with romance, humor and the place names nearby: Bayou Teche, La Place, Opelousas, Lake Charles, Mamou. There are major hospitals, oil drilling operations, a campus of the University of Louisiana and some pretty fancy new suburban developments, but my main reason to visit is the culture. Great food turns up in modest locations like Dwyer's in the old downtown or the Creole Lunch House across from Immaculate Heart of Mary elementary school. So many top-notch musicians live in and around this region that the dance halls, festivals and jam sessions are a major draw. Two local radio stations, commercial KBON-FM and public KRVI-FM, offer this music and a lot of the local patois in abundance. Other forms of creativity flourish - my friend and I spent a lot of time talking and browsing with the brother-sister team who runs Parish Ink, a Web design and graphics business that turns out some beautiful, quirky and original work.
If you treasure the endurance of firmly rooted cultures that resist extinction - and you can handle the combined heat and humidity that pervades the region much of the year - this is a great place to visit on its own or in combination with a road trip that includes New Orleans or Houston.
