Boy this place was amazing! NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) really got under our skin and we could have parked up and stayed a while. We travelled here from Miami via the swamps and sink holes of Tallahassee (a place which has a pace the Lonely Planet calls “slower than syrup”). We were a little confused and thought this was the place Bobbie Gentry sang about in the famous “Ode to Billie Joe”, but that was actually the Tallahatchie Bridge which we crossed later in our trip through Mississippi.
We arrived into New Orleans in the late afternoon and went straight off to explore the streets of the French Quarter where we were staying. Although you have to use a parking garage and the streets are very narrow, it’s easier to navigate than you might think in a car, as all the streets are one way. The French Quarter is where it’s all happening! It’s great to be in the heart of it all and to listen to the amazing music wafting from every street corner. We stayed in a great little apartment hotel called the Quarter House (a historic building once owned by a free woman of colour). We loved staying here and it was very affordable – Summer is the off season down this way. I did however, see a mouse in my very elegant room on the second floor -probably escaped to higher ground during the flooding from Hurricane Katrina! It was all part of the raffish charm of a place where decay and opulence cosy up together.
We did lots of walking and gawking – the architecture is amazing and there are interesting people and shops to look at everywhere. (And if you are tired of walking you can read in doorways just like Reuben, pictured below). The food is also amazing – creole and cajun cuisine make for some exciting tasty dishes, which were fun to try. There are cocktails to go (a novel concept for us Aussies) and of course we had to try the Bourbon Milk Punch (it’s delicious), one of New Orlean’s signature drinks. It’s also great to visit Cafe du Monde which has been serving up the very tasty and decadent beignets (sugar coated fritters) since 1862 – it’s fun to visit this cafe and partake in a bit of this history. NOLA has quite a debaucherous reputation (and I’m sure it lives up to it, if you’re looking), but we didn’t encounter anything disturbing.
The next day we headed out of town, along the mighty Mississippi (whose moods dominate this place), to visit one of the plantations. There are a lot of them clustered along the River Road and it was hard to choose just one to visit (that’s all we had time for), but in the end we settled on Oak Alley. We were not disappointed – the grounds are amazing and the history of slavery was sensitively and well presented. There’s a cafe here that sells delicious made from scratch Southern food and you can wander through the exhibits on the grounds with a mint julep in hand. A number of well known movies have been filmed here.
After we got back into town we headed to the garden district to stroll around the streets on a walking tour recommended in the Lonely Planet. There are some amazing houses and some fun shops to poke around in – we even bought some hats made from Australian wool! The garden district is also home to the famous Lafayette Cemetery No 1 where people were entombed above ground due to NOLA being below sea level. It was closed when we arrived, but we were still able to peer through the gates.
Back home that evening we couldn’t resist exploring some more of the French Quarter. I loved the corn motif on the Cornstalk Hotel pictured below (maybe I’ll look into staying here if I ever visit again). The corn motif was also used on a fence in the garden district. NOLA is really something quite unique and is like a little slice of Europe ( although of course with its own very distinct characteristics) in America.
Before we could leave town and follow the Mississippi north to Memphis, we were conned by our war history loving son into one last stop at the National WWII Museum in downtown New Orleans. It was well worth a visit, as the displays are amazing.
My roadtrip recount is about to head north up through the Mississippi Delta and I’m going to take a break from regular posting until school holidays end in early February. It’s time to have some down time with the kids (school ends tomorrow – eek)! I’ll pop back in before then to share some inspiration for the festive season – my favourite time of the year!