A Walking Tour of Breaux Bridge

We finally had to give up our table at Cafe des Amis, but it was a beautiful day to stroll through the downtown area and learn some of the history of the area. Lena was born here and has lived here for much of her life; she is related, I swear, to half the people in the parish. More than that, she is a fine storyteller in the Southern tradition and can recount the triumphs and tragedies of people's lives with gusto. We started at the bridge and the bayou and proceeded through the cemetery. An interesting facet of these above ground cemeteries is that often several people are buried in one vault. After a certain length of time, it is permissible to open up a vault (with a relative present) and make a "new" deposit. Sometimes graves will have four or five people in them, all of which have died at different times. Space is at a premium here. Also, this is the white Catholic Church and cemetery. A few blocks away there is an equally imposing black Catholic Church with its own cemetery.