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New Orleans
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
Unfortunately, New Orleans' reputation seems to be exclusively based on the mysteries and debauchery of Mardi Gras.
Unfortunately, New Orleans' reputation seems to be exclusively based on the mysteries and debauchery of Mardi Gras. If you ask most people about the city, they know little about the climate, history, or any other aspects, but have heard that you should go to Bourbon Street with a handful of beads. What they also fail to tell you is about the humidity.
Once you step off the plane in New Orleans, you know you're in New Orleans. The humidity hits you like a wall. A wall of humidity ... okay, that's not descriptive enough. Imagine running out of your house after having the air conditioner on high for a few hours. Then you run outside, but it's the hottest day you've seen, and somebody's following you around with steaming iron, blowing the steam on you Then, when you ask somebody what's going on they say, this is completely normal.
Suffice it to say it was hot.... After getting our bags, we headed over to the Airport Shuttle service, which seems to be one of those little known secret deals. You can take a taxi if you want, but the airport shuttle was filled with some of the nicest people we met in town, and the driver proceeded to give us an extra tour of town "just to get us acclimated." For 20 to 30 minutes, he drove around the area, giving us an overview. We learned this was completely normal for the populous, who are not only fun loving, but are kind enough to give you free 20-minute tours. The humidity might have affected their thinking in a good way.
We checked into the Intercontinental Hotel pretty late, which made it all the more appealing. The hotel is located on the other side of Canal Street from the French Quarter. While the French Quarter is the place you'll want to visit the most, it's sometimes best to not sleep where you're visiting.
The Intercontinental Hotel is a welcome change. It's excessively modern, clean and elegant. The rooms are spacious, and it's close enough for you to clean up before dinner and run back to the French Quarter.
Well, we hit the sack, as we wanted to wake up early to go for breakfast at the Court of Two Sisters. There are two restaurants, which we constantly heard mentioned by the locals for breakfast. One was the Court of Two Sisters, and the other was Breakfast at Brennan's, which we visited the next day. When a local recommends the place, you know it has to be good.
Day 1
The Court of Two Sisters has a buffet-style breakfast and you eat under the natural tree "awning" in the back court. The court is the area between the buildings in the backyard, and the trees and vines form a canopy over where you're sitting, creating a beautiful setting.
In the background, you have the traditional New Orleans Dixie music, while you hear the bubbling of the fountain in the center of the court. The buffet brunch is a good way to get introduced to some of the traditional New Orleans foods, as you can sample gumbo, jambalaya, and New Orleans' King Cake, in addition to dozens of other entries.
After breakfast, we ran over to the Gray Line Lighthouse behind Jax Brewery to do the Super City Tour. We figured we wanted a complete overview of the city, and the Super City Tour was one of the few that seemed to cover everything.
We explored a bit of the entire neighborhood and even stopped to visit the above ground cemetery St. Louis Cemetery #3. I'll tell you more about the cemeteries later. It was a good overview of the city taking us from the river to Lake Pontchartrain.
Anyway, after the tour we decided to go for some traditional gumbo, at where else, but the Gumbo Shop. This was also mentioned by the locals and the tour guides, as a pretty good place to get a sample of gumbo and Po-Boys.
Po-Boys are a traditional New Orleans sandwich, which you'll see as often as a pizza joint in New York City. Every few blocks, Pop Boys are advertised. What is it? Essentially a "Poor Boy" sandwich is a French baguette with any sort of filling, but it seems commonly they have roast beef.
We sustained ourselves on the Jambalaya, gumbo and a Po Boy. It's a bit of a contrast to eat a Po Boy in this beautiful 1795 building with the garden in the back, but the fear of elegance was washed away with the gumbo.
If you'll notice on this first day, we did more "eating" than we did "seeing." It seems in downtown New Orleans, that's just what you do. It's a city that prides itself on its culinary traditions, and every corner had a restaurant that beats the next one.
As we felt a bit too stuffed to walk, it seemed only natural to walk a bit of it off now.
We headed over to the Cabildo and Presbytere museums in Jackson Square. Both are historic buildings, now turned into museums, surrounding either side of St. Louis Cathedral. The Cathedral is so striking; we changed our plans slightly and stopped in there first.
St. Louis Cathedral is the oldest Roman Catholic Cathedral in the country with beautiful woodwork, statues and art throughout. One of the most interesting features to me was the absence of Judas from the 12 apostles. They just left him out of this church completely.
Anyway, we left the church and headed over to the Presbytere, which houses a permanent display on Mardi Gras. If you think Mardi Gras is just girls exposing their "wares" and excessive amounts of drinking, then this should be a first stop for you. It explains about the King and the Queen of the parade, Rex, Zulu and the other characters who make up Mardi Gras.
From the Presbytere, we headed over to the Cabildo, which was the original seat of government in New Orleans at the time it was a Spanish colony. The Cabildo now houses two exhibits: one on the history of Louisiana and New Orleans, and the other on the life of Napoleon. Also, the Louisiana Purchase is a major focus of this museum.
Well, after all of this eating and touring, we decided to change for dinner, rest, and then head out to explore Bourbon Street.
Bourbon Street is alive all year round and not just at Mardi Gras. This was a Tuesday night, and the party was still going from 9pm until the wee hours of the morning.
It's a bit hard to describe Bourbon Street because it's one of those events that can only be experienced, but I'll do my best. Bourbon Street is the world's largest orgy of partying, covering the gamut of gluttony from food, to clubs, to drinking, to shopping, to sex, to Christianity. It's one of the only streets that I've seen where you can see a Born Again Christian holding a sign about the evils of Bourbon Street right next to a live sex show, while eating authentic Cajun food. If you can think of your type of debauchery, they have it there.
Blues clubs, rock, jazz, folk ... in addition to the New Orleans standards of Cajun food and cheap plastic beads. It's a continual party.
Read part 1 |Read part 2 |Read part 3
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