29th Oct – 3rd Nov
New Orleans is a city of many facets. It is built on a swamp and much of the outlying areas are poor, damp and still recovering from the chaos caused by hurricane Katrina 12 years ago. It has a nondescript modern CBD and ‘burbs, an area called the Garden District which has streets and streets of impressive old character homes, and it is crisscrossed by a spaghetti mess of flood-resistant raised highways. But of course it is best known for its French Quarter. The small, historic, low-level district built on a grid, packed full of classic old buildings with balconies, stoops, alley ways and intrigue. It is also packed full of the tourists, the musicians, the bizarre, the drunk and the intriguing. We were here during the crazy town’s second most crazy time of year after Mardi Gras, Halloween.
Our journey into New Orleans took us via another large plantation home along the banks of the Mississippi. This one was called Oak Alley, for a fairly obvious reason. The tour around the house itself was a bit half hearted, but the grounds were lovely and there was a small kiosk selling mint juleps on the veranda. We bought one to share but it was so strong that I had to drink most of it as Nick was driving. I was subsequently reasonably merry. Bring on NOLA!
On the outskirts of the French Quarter, a mere hop and a skip from its mayhem is the French Quarter RV Resort. It looked like a gulag from the outside with a high cinder block perimeter wall topped with spikes and electronic security gates, but inside it was a beautifully kept and spacious park with gym, club house, pool and hot tub. We arrived with a sigh of relief having ‘white-knuckled’ it through the frantic urban highway traffic and within 30 mins we were padding across the tarmac for a soak in the pool. The unseasonably hot weather was ongoing and this was going to be a great place to hang-out for a few days.
The next morning we ventured into the French Quarter. The best known street of them all, Bourbon Street was an awful sight. By night this is a no-holds-barred party street. The music is loud and the drinking is hard by blitzed revellers, young and definitely-old-enough-to-know-better alike. The clear up from the usual boozy night before was in full swing with bar workers hosing the vomit from the pavements and sweeping up broken glass. It reeked of stale beer and regret. To add to the mess there were extensive roadworks. We headed to a restaurant called Court of Two Sisters for brunch. This was in a beautiful courtyard shaded by the most spectacular wisteria vine, with live jazz playing. Very civilised, although half of the music that the band played was individual serenades of ‘Happy Birthday’ to about eight different tables. It is obviously the place to go for birthday celebrations.
We took our full stomachs for a stroll around the quarter, taking in some churches, the waterfront, the French Market and Frenchman St. It is a bit surreal to be surrounded by so much french-ness again having spent our summer in France. (C’est très bizarre, mais nous l’aimons, MC!) The steadily increasing heat sent us scurrying back to the sanctuary of RV Gulag Resort and the coolness of the pool for the rest of the afternoon. That evening we partook in very popular activity peculiar to the French Quarter. The walking tour. Lots of these are ‘ghost tours’, taking in the haunted and spooky corners of the district. We chose a less supernatural one which featured more general history, unsolved and notorious crimes, some film locations, interesting architecture with only the occasional ghost story thrown in. It was busy evening for tours and seemed that half the humans in the Quarter were sporting a tour sticker, holding a skull fan and trailing around after a loud voiced, steam-punk garbed, twenty-something guide. It was actually a great way to spend a couple of hours, especially as it was sultry, still evening, having a drink in hand was entirely expected and the place has some seriously interesting history. In the day and age of digital information exchange it was great to see that verbal story-telling is still so popular. We finished the evening with a few drinks far from the madding crowd at a cocktail bar on the way home.
The next day we took the old bone-shaking street-car up to the fancy Garden district and spent the late morning sauntering the streets, ooggling at all the lovely and enormous old homes. This area was originally a large plantation, was sold off to a property developer who sold plots to the great and good who built their town houses to impress their friends and neighbours. Some things never change. In the middle of the district is one of those large old walled cemeteries filled with impressive but crumbling mausoleums and graves. All burials are above ground in New Orleans. If you dig a hole in the ground in this town it soon fills with water.
We came, we saw, we lunched and we took the street-car back to the FQ. This took longer than planned as there was a film crew cluttering the place up whilst filming a Jamie Foxx movie. We didn’t get the name of the film, but another crew was filming a new series called Shadows elsewhere in the quarter. It seems that mostly film crews spend their time eating and drinking. We base this on our analysis of the number of catering vans parked in environs of both these filming locations. I don’t know how they get any work done.
Having had great and grand plans to dress up for our Halloween evening in New Orleans, in the end we did not. We contented ourselves with the admiring of those that had make the effort, and there were plenty of very imaginative and inventive costumes. It was nuts out there. I particularly enjoy watching people in crazy costumes doing very normal things. Without irony. Like these mermen and mermaid on a walking tour earlier in the day. All three were only wearing stars over their nipples.
After dinner at a place called The Gumbo Shop we headed out into the fray. The streets were filled with pirates, scarecrows, cats, zombies, witches and the like. The whole district was abuzz (ie drunk) and Bourbon Street, as expected, was already carnage by 11pm. I can only imagine was 2am looks like around here. We found sanctuary in a side street bar and made it home without being thrown up on. Quite an achievement in this neck of the woods.
The heat and humidity eventually produced an impressive thunderstorm overnight. Rain on our roof is very noisy so sleep wasn’t very forthcoming. Happily it had dried out by late morning the next day and we walked over to the National World War II museum in the neighbouring Warehouse District. This has been ranked as the 2nd best museum in the country, and was personally recommended by Mr J Armitage (I think he was particularly impressed by the fact that it had an on-site bar that had a happy hour running during his visit). It was a very good museum. Obviously very American-centric (Little mention of 1939-41), but great exhibits, and some cool interactive stuff. It is massive, and they are still adding new buildings. We did as much as our attention spans would allow, and after museum fatigue set in, (unfortunately long before happy hour started at the bar) we left.
We strolled back along the waterfront to another French Quarter institution, Café du Monde. The only place to have café au lait and a beignet or three. It was co-incidentally exactly afternoon tea/coffee and beignet time when we arrived, so we did. Flagging bodies revived, we headed back to Casa Tin Can to spruce up for our fancy dinner that evening at Arnauds Jazz Bistro. Well worth the spondoolies.
Our last day in New Orleans had to include that other classic Louisiana experience, the bayou airboat tour. Today the heatwave was gone and an icy wind had replaced it. Just the day to sit in an open boat and blast around the water at 30mph. We dressed for it, incredulously pulling jumpers, boots and coats out of their storage lockers. The shuttle bus collected us from the gulag gate, scooped up a few others from various hotels and drove us out to the airboat dock. What an operation! There were about 100 of us all together on various tours, all leaving a the same time. We were all ‘processed’ within 20 mins: names checked off, credit cards swiped, coloured wristbands applied. We were encouraged to view the captive albino alligator in a small pool in the back of the shop. It looked sad, if that is possible. The shop did a raging business selling their branded hooded sweatshirts to those under-dressed punters who were already freezing just waiting in-line for the bathroom. And then we were off. We were in a boat skippered by a gnarly chap called Rich. He was a full blown bayou born and bred hunter-gatherer who definitely brought his own brand of wisdom to our tour. More focus on how much you can earn as an alligator hunter than on the ecology of the environment. Interesting nonetheless.
We saw a few mid-sized alligators, who were lured closer to the boat with marshmallows. ‘Gator crack’ he called them. Not sure they can be very good for them. An alligator with tooth decay is a problem. The bayou was beautiful and man, those boats are LOUD!
We returned to base only partly hypothermic and were shuttled back to town. We spent the rest of the afternoon gathering our thoughts, doing the weekly laundry and generally sorting out for moving on the next day. New Orleans was great fun, really interesting and it was amazing to be able to stay in such a great RV park so close to all the action. We will be sorry to leave, but the Tin Can must continue its travels!