We have left the quiet of Citronelle behind and are now camped in Louisiana in the very busy Fontainebleau State Park.
This is a popular family park only about an hour across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. As this is the weekend the park is pretty full.
Fontainebleau was once the plantation and sugar mill of Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville, who founded the city of Mandeville and purchased the land and set up the sugar mill using money he made from selling land he inherited in New Orleans. Today these ruins are all that’s left of the sugar mill and plantation…
along with these live oaks which sheltered the cabins where almost 100 enslaved people lived. The plantation operated from around 1828 until 1852.
There’s a nice nature trail here.
This part of the trail is a raised road constructed by the CCC. In our travels I have been impressed by all the wonderful public places we have because of the CCC and the WPA. It would be good if we could find a way to have programs like these again.
The park is on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. This 630 square mile body of water isn’t actually a lake, it’s an estuary joining the Gulf of Mexico. The park is just east of the causeway that crosses the lake to New Orleans. At 23 miles long, the causeway is the longest bridge that continuously crosses water.
There’s a nice beach…
and some lovely pavilions.
In 2021 Hurricane Ida hit here. The bathhouse is still being repaired.
The boardwalk through the marsh was destroyed.
Many of the trees were stripped of their small branches.
But nature recovers…
and Fontainebleau State Park remains a lovely place.
On the Roam Again 
Well, in spite of the almost city-like appearance of the camp site area, you found some lovely quiet places. Thank you for the history lessons, too! Very interesting!
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