Some will tell you that the real Louisiana lies south of I-10, the equivalent of the state’s own Mason-Dixon Line, and the highway that stretches from Slidell all the way past Lake Charles. But Natchitoches (Nack-a-Tush), which sits well north of the great divide, is the oldest permanent settlement in Louisiana, predating even the Big Easy. 
 
Day 1: Checking In
From Shreveport, it’s about an hour’s drive south on Route Interstate 49 to Hwy. 6 East, which takes you past gas stations selling meat pies to the red-brick Northwestern State University and its fraternity and sorority row. Just past the university, the intersection of Hwy. 6 (Business) and Jefferson marks the southeastern edge of Natchitoches’ 33-block National Historic Landmark District, bounded by the Cane River to the east and 2nd Street to the west.
 
The town is wall-to-wall with bed & breakfasts and inns, all of which have beaucoup de charme. My first choice is the Tante Huppe Inn Bed & Breakfast, a four-room establishment run by a local character by the name of Robert Buford DeBlieux. A former mayor and part-time romance novelist, Bobby comes from a long line of Deblieux (pronounced, “W”), the first of whom came to Natchitoches in 1718.  I have a hard time getting in touch with Mr. DeBlieux, however, so I check in a few blocks away at the award-winning Queen Anne Bed & Breakfast. Built in 1905, the pretty yellow Victorian has five rooms, decked out with four-poster king beds and Jacuzzi tubs. 
 
The innkeeper points me in the direction of Front Street, the town’s brick-paved thoroughfare with wrought iron balconies overlooking the Cane River Lake. Today, on the grassy banks of the river, I see families and couples sprawled on blankets for the annual jazz and R&B fest—one of the town's many excuses to indulge in fried food, cold beverages and live music. 
 
With Alicia Keys in the background, I check out the street’s wares: Nestled among souvenir shops and local restaurants are art galleries and hidden gems, such as the Book Merchant, a well-edited store, carrying classic fiction, local folklore and an interesting assortment of used books ranging from steamy novels to Civil War histories. I pick up Natchitoches: Images of America, a pictorial history of the area, find Mr. DeBlieux’s most recent thriller, The Garden Club, and discover a well-worn copy of Kate Chopin’s Private Papers in the “vintage” section. I consider this purchase a perfect start to the trip and head back to the inn to get ready for dinner.
 
Restaurants around these parts tend to be more about good home cookin’ than fine dining, but, following the Innkeepers’s recommendation, I book a table at Mariner’s Restaurant, a nautical-themed restaurant overlooking Sibley Lake. The menu is extensive, with everything from fried alligator to Chateaubriand for two, but I stick to seafood, opting for the Louisiana oysters on the half-shell (very fresh) and blackened tilapia (excellent). As the sun sets over the lake, I savor a glass of wine and begin reading Lalita Tademy’s novel, set on the banks of the very same Cane River Lake.
 
Day 2: Getting Acquainted
Many of the city’s oldest houses are private homes, open to the public only during certain times of the year.  In the fall, the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches (APHN) hosts the Pilgrimage and Tour of Homes, and during the Christmas Festival, candle-lit tours are given every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, during the 2nd and 3rd week in December. Still, the historic district’s Greek Revivals, Queen Anne Victorians, French Colonials, Creole cottages, and Italianate architecture are the city’s main draw and worth spending the better part of a day checking out. With a walking tour map of the National Historic Landmark District from the Information Center, the area is easily explored on foot–which is my plan–right after I tuck into a two-course breakfast of fresh fruit and Eggs Benedict. 
 
Again, I make my way toward Front Street, this time paying more attention: There’s the Prudhomme Rouquier House, originally built around the turn of the 18th century, but later remodeled as a Greek Revival. It is just next door to the Tante-Huppe, a Creole Townhouse, circa 1851 (where I knock on the door to see if I can catch the elusive Mr. DeBlieux.  No luck).  The Steel Magnolias house, where the movie was famously filmed, is now appropriately named the Steel Magnolia House Bed & Breakfast, and the Steamboat house is so called because it was allegedly made from two old steamboats. It would be easy to miss the Tauzin-Well house, which lies across the Cane River Lake. Don’t. It’s the oldest structure in Natchitoches, constructed in 1776 of cypress timbers and bousillage, a mixture of Spanish moss, animal hair and mud.
 
And now that I’ve burned off my breakfast, it’s time to have my first meat pie. Natchitoches is the home of the meat pie, a fried pastry shell stuffed with seasoned ground meat, typically a blend of beef and pork. And Lasyone's Meat Pie Restaurant is the place to go for this area treat.  Founded in 1967 by the Lasyones, the joint is now run by two daughters, holders of the secret meat pie recipe. When I ask Edna, my waitress, who’s an institution after 32 years of serving tables, what to get she tells me, “Everything’s good, but the meat pies and the red beans and rice are the specials.” I also order the corn fritters, massive balls of spicy, fried cornmeal batter, crispy onion rings, and a crawfish pie—a new addition to the menu and my personal favorite.
 
Full of fried food, I walk over to the Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site to take in a bit of history. When Louis Jucherau de St. Denis founded Natchitoches in 1714, his first task was to build a fort to protect the borders of the French colonial empire, whose westernmost edge abutted the eastern reaches of New Spain. Though the French and the Spanish were technically forbidden from trading, the colonists maintained friendly relationships—with each other and with the Caddo Indians—because they could not afford to do otherwise. Back then, Natchitoches was very much the frontier. The fort that stands today was built in 1979, but the replica feels like the real thing and there are knowledgeable, cheery guides in authentic colonial garb to show you around.
 
Later that night, I refuel at Mama’s Oyster House, famous for its catfish, served fried or blackened and topped off with shrimp etouffée. It’s a kitschy, grubby place, with moose heads and neon-beer signs, but the food delivers: I opt for the oyster po’ boy and am surprised to find oysters as fresh as any I’ve had in New Orleans. 
 
Day 3: Leaving Town
There are several plantations nearby, including the Cane River Creole National Historical Park at Oakland Plantation—but the Melrose Plantation is the most famous—and my first stop of the day. Highway 119 takes you back to a time when crop fields and winding waterways dominated the landscape, and driving it today, it doesn’t seem as if much has changed in the past few decades—or century even—out here in Louisiana’s back roads. 
 
While Melrose’s Big House, an early Louisiana-style plantation house, built in 1833 and later expanded upon, is impressive, what makes Melrose so interesting—and so different from other area plantations—is its unique history and strong matriarchs. Dating back to 1796, Melrose was originally known as Yucca, when it was owned by Marie Therese Coin-Coin, a freed slave who was granted the land by her former owner, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer—also thought to be the father of many of her children. A century later, Cammie Henry presided over the plantation, and turned it into a haven for writers and artists. Among them was the celebrated African American folk artist, Clementine Hunter, whose murals and paintings can be seen throughout the plantation, but especially in the African House.
 
Instead of heading north on I-49, I decide to take the long way back home to Shreveport, on the Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway, which runs 17 miles through the Kisatchie National Forest, past rugged mesas and sandstone outcrops, over the Kisatchie Bayou. And out here in the wilderness, I can almost get a sense of what it must have been like when the French settlers first arrived.