Duration: 1/2 day (morning or afternoon) to full day

Begin your visit to Baton Rouge and Plantation Country with a stop at Louisiana's magnificent State Capitol building. The Louisiana Office of Tourism can provide by appointment an excellent half-hour tour of the building's Memorial Hall, the House and Senate chambers, and a look at one of the unsolved mysteries of the 20th Century-the assassination of Governor Huey P. Long in 1932. The building's architecture is even more spectacular in view of the 1997 restoration. Hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.

A visit to the Capitol should include an elevator ride to the observation deck, an education in itself. From here you can see in every direction: downtown Baton Rouge; Spanish Town; and Beauregard Town, a handsomely laid out community of 1806. See the state's second largest inland port (the fourth largest port in tonnage in the country) and view the amount of river traffic for work and pleasure on the Mississippi River.

Once back on the ground floor, it is easy to walk to several sites nearby. Visit the Pentagon Barracks, military home to General Zachary Taylor and generals Grant and Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Sheridan, Custer, Beauregard and many others. Look for a historical marker than proclaims where Fort New Richmond, the original post of the Baton Rouge settlement, once stood. See a larger than life Huey Long-his statue in the Capitol garden marks his grave. Stroll over to the Old Arsenal Museum and wonder what life was like in a Civil War bunker more than 100 years ago. Discover more remnants of Louisiana's colorful past at the Old State Capitol, where Huey Long made his fieriest speeches. Plan a tour of the old Governor's Mansion on North Boulevard for a glimpse of every day life in the Huey Long era. While downtown, discover the USS KIDD, one of the best restored WWII destroyers in the country, and the Louisiana Naval War Memorial Museum along the river.

For lunch, or even dinner, there are many downtown restaurants offering everything from casual dining to down-home cooking, from soups and salads to white table cloth fare-it's all good to eat.

While in the downtown area, you'll notice two distinctive adjuncts: Spanish Town and Beauregard Town. In 1778, Spanish settlers from the Canary Islands migrated about 20 miles southeast of Baton Rouge to oversee the Manchac-Amite waterway. When the Louisiana Purchase took place in 1803, they moved to the area known as Spanish Town near what is now downtown Baton Rouge. Today, Spanish Town is a much smaller area than the original plan, but it retains its narrow streets, its irregular block layout, and high concentration of historic buildings that tell of a fascinating past. Beauregard Town was a planned community laid out in the grand European manner in 1806 by Elias Beauregard. The plan included hospitals, a town hall, the Ursuline Convent, the customs house and King's Store. Four diagonal streets would radiate from the cathedral at the center square to the four corners of the design. As happens so often to developers, pieces of the community were sold before completion. The various styles of architecture give the area an eclectic, quaint flavor.

Group tours or individuals can spend hours learning how Baton Rouge's earliest settlers lived at Magnolia Mound Plantation. Get back to real basics at Rural Life Museum and see the way of life for rural settlers in Louisiana before the Industrial Age. Include Mount Hope Plantation for a glimpse of how another group of Baton Rouge settlers, the Germans, lived.

Travel back further in time to the days of explorers and trappers and traders at Alligator Bayou Swamp Tours, a fascinating historical and environmental tour of Louisiana's precious wetlandresources. Food service and entertainment are options here. Experience swamp life up-close at Bluebonnet Swamp, a boardwalk swamp tour practically in the middle of this city of nearly half a million. Both outdoor experiences are less than 20 minutes from most hotels!

If your group prefers a different breed of wildlife, try Casino Rouge or Argosy Casino - two elegantly appointed riverboat casinos in downtown Baton Rouge. Both offer food service daily and Argosy Casino offers the Argosy Casino Atrium.

If you enjoy fine art, you'll appreciate Louisiana Arts & Science Museum, which also features a permanent exhibit of Egyptian artifacts. Louisiana State University and Southern University both feature fine art museums with gallery exhibits, as well as athletic events and other leisure activities throughout the year.