This is the day trips from new orleans chapter from lonely planet's new orleans guidebook. Want to escape the city? This chapter includes the very best excursions from new orleans and they can all be completed in a day. Must sees include river road plantations and st fran cisville. Graceful antebellum mansions with elaborate gardens dot river road, with majestic live oaks and clustered slave shanties offering a glimpse into a foreign but not too distant past maps in st francisville antiques, birds and ghost stories, plus a few plantations, make a fine trip. And that's without mentioning the museum at the 18,000 acre penitentiary in angola transport join the party or the fais do do cajun dance in lafayette and breaux bridge, where cajun dance halls and crawfish boils keep things lively. And the food? It's serious busi ness around here restaurants bars coverage includes river road plantations, st francisville, lafayette, breaux bridge, cajun prairie, down the bayou.