Two Days in New Orleans, Day 1
On Tuesday we got up reasonably early, really early by NO standards, to do a walking tour of the French Quarter using a guide book. We caught the Saint Charles Street Streetcar and rode it to the edge of the French Quarter. We started out going down Bourbon street heading towards our kickoff point and Emily and I decided if it smelled that bad at 9:00 am we didn't want to know how bad it was at night. Once we hit the beginning of the tour it started looking up. Once off Bourbon Street things are more maintained and hold some charm. The farther off Bourbon the nicer things became. Shortly in we hit our first bakery and thus our first beignet. We walked for probably 2 hours total and saw great examples of the original French architecture and the later, post fire, Spanish architecture.
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At the end of our walk we got our second beignet's at Cafe du Monde, running continuously since 1862 and 24 hours a day (in case you are partying on Bourbon Street and need a pastry). Once fed we walked up the steps to the top of the levee to view the river. It is a big river down here and dwarfs the northern end I saw on my only other sighting in Minnesota. On the levee we saw the horses and carriages so we took one as we owed Laura from our 2008 trip to NYC where we couldn't do the Central Park Carriages.
Turns out this was a 30 minute tour of the French Quarter. We learned a few things on the way. First, it's illegal to pull carriages with horses in NO, so our horse was a mule (hopefully loophole Laura doesn't use that to get another carriage ride). Second, due to most of the French Quarter burning down while Spain ruled the architecture is predominately Spanish influenced. Third, the city, what is now the French Quarter (a 7 by 13 block section of land), was located there because it was above sea level. 11 feet above sea level and the surrounding area wasn't.
In the afternoon we went out to a Creole plantation called 'Laura'. It was a plantation run by 4 generations of women up river from NO. We learned that the Garden District, where we are staying, was at one time a separate city named Lafayette that was formed by the 'Americans' after the Louisiana Purchase because the Creole's banned them from New Orleans (the current French Quarter). Apparently the Creoles didn't consider themselves American right away after the purchase. In fact it wasn't until the early twentieth century that French wasn't their predominant language, when using it for official business became illegal. It was a fascinating tour and we learned some history we didn't know.
After getting soaked by a rainstorm getting a picture of the Oak Alley plantation (photo's later) we headed home and called it a day.
Sent from my Silver iPhone 5s
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At the end of our walk we got our second beignet's at Cafe du Monde, running continuously since 1862 and 24 hours a day (in case you are partying on Bourbon Street and need a pastry). Once fed we walked up the steps to the top of the levee to view the river. It is a big river down here and dwarfs the northern end I saw on my only other sighting in Minnesota. On the levee we saw the horses and carriages so we took one as we owed Laura from our 2008 trip to NYC where we couldn't do the Central Park Carriages.
Turns out this was a 30 minute tour of the French Quarter. We learned a few things on the way. First, it's illegal to pull carriages with horses in NO, so our horse was a mule (hopefully loophole Laura doesn't use that to get another carriage ride). Second, due to most of the French Quarter burning down while Spain ruled the architecture is predominately Spanish influenced. Third, the city, what is now the French Quarter (a 7 by 13 block section of land), was located there because it was above sea level. 11 feet above sea level and the surrounding area wasn't.
In the afternoon we went out to a Creole plantation called 'Laura'. It was a plantation run by 4 generations of women up river from NO. We learned that the Garden District, where we are staying, was at one time a separate city named Lafayette that was formed by the 'Americans' after the Louisiana Purchase because the Creole's banned them from New Orleans (the current French Quarter). Apparently the Creoles didn't consider themselves American right away after the purchase. In fact it wasn't until the early twentieth century that French wasn't their predominant language, when using it for official business became illegal. It was a fascinating tour and we learned some history we didn't know.
After getting soaked by a rainstorm getting a picture of the Oak Alley plantation (photo's later) we headed home and called it a day.
Sent from my Silver iPhone 5s
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