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| Home Page > Photos > New Orleans - 2009 | ||||||||||||||
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New Orleans - 2009Not our first trip to New Orleans, but the first one for Brian & Monica. On the plus side, every flight (6 off them with KLM or affiliates) all arrived ahead of schedule! We timed the arrival, for the weather, perfectly. Storms in the weeks before we arrived gave way to wall to wall sunshine for the 12 days we were in the area. The photos, as usual, are chronological. We stayed in Mandeville with Peter, Donna, Olivia (and Alaster – sometimes!). Our first visit into N. Orleans was a bit of a surprise and we stumbled upon The French Quarter Festival in full swing – four or five stages sited around the downtown area of the city. All the entertainment was free as was entrance to Preservation Hall. There was also all sorts of other freebies happening – visits to hidden gardens and the place had a carnival atmosphere! As usual, a trip to the French Quarter wouldn’t be the same if you don’t have coffee and beignets at Café Du Monde – an institution. Back at Mandeville, Peter & Donna organised a Crawfish Ball – with family and friends calling in. We had visits to a couple of local nature reserves close to Mandeville and the Copper Head snake in the photo was nearly trodden on by Monica. We spent a few nights in N. Orleans staying at the Hotel Saint Marie on Toulouse Street (one block back from Bourbon St.) – definitely in the thick of the action! Prior to check-in we visited what we thought was going to be a shop selling guitars. Well, it wasn’t and we ended up being shown around the New Orleans Guitar Company by Vincent, the owner. A super facility and Vincent is an artisan in the art of making guitars the way they should be made; by hand – www.neworleansguitar.com. We did not have a bad experience at any point in the French Quarter. A great meal was had at Pere Antoine on Royal Street – and Monica was surprised by Brian’s choice of aperitif! For the techies among us, just about everywhere in N. Orleans has free Wi-Fi access and a particularly nice place to surf is Community Coffee on Royal Street; great coffee as well! The ferry from the waterfront to Algiers is free to pedestrians. Algiers is worth a visit, for the architecture but don’t go to see the Mardi Gras carnival floats; the exhibition is moving to somewhere in N. Orleans central – which we found about after boarding the ferry! Another very worthwhile visit is to The National World War II Museum - www.nationalww2museum.org. The museum is geared to showing WWII (and a new addition of the Pacific campaign) from an American perspective. Definitely worth a visit – and there is a further development opening later in ’09. A visit south of N. Orleans to the Jean Laffite National Historical Park is well worth the effort to see some man-made bayous/canals and natural swamp areas. The Visitors Centre is great for getting a feel for the history of the whole wetland area of Louisiana - www.nps.gov/jela. A visit to Louisiana wouldn’t be complete without visiting a plantation house. We visited Destrehan – www.destrehanplantation.org. The tours around the house were escorted but we were free to tour the grounds thereafter. An interesting demonstration on how Indigo was produced. A trip to Madisonville, en-route to Smitty’s Blueberry Farm (Nr. Franklinton), was nice – as can be seen from the photos. A great lunch at Morton’s – www.mortonsseafood.com – in Madisonville and the good thing about all the restaurants we visited, is that they are happy for a group to share a starter or pudding. Smitty’s was great and certainly different terrain to that of the coast. Everett & Sherry took us to the local diner serving excellent homely food (not as good as Sherry’s iced coffee!). Honey Island Swamp Tour was a great success - www.honeyislandswamp.com. The tour is well organised and very informative and there is lots of wildlife to see. Some damage from Katrina is still evident but by and large the land has recovered well (but why people build brand new multi million $ house near the waterfront is a mystery?). JazzFest (1st Weekend) – and, other than to see Peter, Donna & Co., was the reason for the visit to N. Orleans – www.nojazzfest.com. We pre-bought tickets and this proved to be the correct decision – you can’t buy online if you do not reside in the USA and we had to got to The Superdome Arena for our tickets. Peter stated that he had never ever been so near the front of the queue to get into JazzFest – but he was with Brian and me! The music/artists were great and the major problem was fitting in the artists we all wanted to see! Too many good gigs to name them all but the stand out ones were, James Taylor, Robert Cray Band, Wilco, Lil’ Buck Sinegal, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings (recommended by Rebecca & Andrew), Paul Sanchez, Wayne Toups & ZyDeCajun, Mavis Staples, and The Pfister Sister. There was music to suit all tastes and various stalls to buy CD’s, souvenirs, etc, and if a local (or international) artist’s music was not available at JazzFest, it was available at The Louisiana Music Factory on Decatur Street - www.louisianamusicfactory.com. The catering arrangements at JazzFest were superb, authentic Cajun food on tap all day and good value for money. The organisation overall was of a very high standard and even though booze was available, there was never a hint of any rowdiness. Donna provided a great final family meal and Alaster decided that no trip to N. Orleans was complete without a daiquiri. Mmmm. Can’t wait for the next visit.
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