This is a bit of a long post but I thought it would be better to include all of the time we spent in New Orleans in a single post.
As I mentioned last time it was late at night when we arrived in New Orleans. Sleepy as we were, nothing could stop us from listening to House of the Rising Sun on Spotify as we passed alongside Lake Pontchartrain. New Orleans has got to be one of the most evocative cities in America and we were all excited for the next few days.
We decided early on that we would stay three nights to allow us to properly explore the city. We managed to get a really nice hotel room for next to nothing thanks to Rez's Booking.com discount. The Blake Hotel is downtown and only a few blocks from the French Quarter. Once again it was only a four person room but we were well equipped from camping to squeeze another person in on the floor.
We had been passing around colds and sore throats for much of the trip and as we arrived at the hotel I started to feel something. I had to wake up early the next morning to move the car to a parking garage and was soon feeling pretty lousy. There was no time to loose however so we set off in search of breakfast and found by far the nicest supermarket of the trip so far. It was called Rouse's and was on two blocks from our hotel. We found an amazing selection of bread and cheese (real cheese, not that orange rubbish), pizza and sushi, pastries and coffee. We'd end up going back each of the next three mornings for food.
Our first afternoon was spent exploring the city. The heat made this slow going but we eventually made our way to the riverside and then on to Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter. At this point I was feeling pretty sick and decided to go back to the hotel to sleep. We were hoping to go out later in the evening to visit some of the Jazz clubs that New Orleans is famous for. At this point it was looking unlikely that I'd make it. The other's stayed out and continued to explore.
A few hours of sleep did wonders and I found the energy to make it out for dinner. We went to a small bar and restaurant in a little park off Bourbon Street called Musical Legends Park. This would have to be the most disappointing meal of the trip by far.
First off we all ordered a cocktail, as you do in New Orleans. These were served in tiny plastic cups by an extremely rude waitress. I ordered a Sazerac which was okay but basically just tasted like licorice. Two of the girls ordered Mojitos and I have never tasted anything so bad. I'm not joking when I say that they tasted like catfood. The service and drinks were so bad that for the first and only time we didn't leave a tip.
Next up was the food which appeared to be quite cheap at around $8 per entrée (which is really a main...). We tried to order all of the specialities that we'd heard of; shrimp and chicken Po Boys, Gumbo, and Jambalaya. The food was served on plastic plates and bowls with plastic cutlery. The Po Boys were basically fried meat piled on top of a small piece of dry baguette with no sauce of any kind. The Gumbo had no Okra, a key ingredient. To top it all off we later found that proper restaurants charged a similar price for these meals.
After our disappointing dinner we left Bourbon Street for Frenchman Street where we had been told the real authentic Jazz clubs could be found. We had a great night at a bunch of different clubs listening to some cool music. We even brought a CD from one of the bands.
We had booked a walking tour of the famous St Louis No.1 cemetery for the next morning. It was incredibly hot, even at 9am, as we walked to meet up with the tour guide. St Louis is an historic cemetery located just outside the French Quarter. Due to the city being built below the water level, graves are built above ground rather than below. Our tour guide, a native of the city, gave us a great overview of the history of cemetery and how it fitted in with that of the city itself. There were also cold towels provided to give to relief from the heat which was a nice touch.
Walking through the cemetery was a unique experience, very different from a typical graveyard. The graves that are built above ground are called vaults and often hold the remains of multiple generations of families. The vaults are built in a rather haphazard manner with narrow paths between them and no obvious planning. The cemetery is still in use today and some vaults are brand new, while others have almost crumbled away. Nicolas Cage has built a vault of his own in the cemetery, a ridiculous pyramid, to be buried in when he dies. Our guide said that it is quite common for people to do this and she herself was planning to be buried there.
Exhausted from the heat, we returned to our room and slept for an hour or so. After we'd recovered sufficiently we moved out again for some food from Rouses. We had another walking tour for the evening, a ghost tour. We had actually met the tour guide while at the cemetery tour and she said she'd do her best to squeeze us in to her fully booked tour group. While we waited for it to get dark we explored the river side and visited an outlet mall. I was still trying to find a phone replacement at this point and I almost bought a cheapish phone from a stand in the mall. Luckily I looked up prices before I did and realised that they were trying to charge $100 more than the average price. I suspect that any mall can call itself an outlet mall.
The ghost tour was a fun experience and once again our guide was very knowledgeable and gave a lot of insight into the history of the French Quarter. We heard a lot of interesting stories about the buildings that are supposedly haunted. It was nice to wander the streets at night when the air was a little cooler. We were all so tired after the tour that we headed straight home and went to bed.
For our last day we had one more walking tour planned, a food tour of the French Quarter. New Orleans is famous for its Creole and Cajun cuisine and we felt like we had not really learnt anything about this so far. Our tour guide Dave was amazing. His love of food and his home town was contagious and his outlook on life was fantastic. He took us to various restaurants and cafes, all the while explaining the history of various dishes.
We also learnt a lot about the difference between Creole and Cajun cultures and culinary styles. Put simply Creole are anyone who where colonial settlers of the area, or those descended from them. Cajun are specifically those who migrated from French Canada after it was taken by the English. The food itself is similar in many ways with a strong European influence combined with local ingredients and spices.
We finished up our tour at an open air food market with a sample of praline (pronounced here as prahleen). We each got lunch from market stalls and finally had some good traditional food. I had a Muffaletta while the others had Po Boys and Beans and Rice. Our final stop before leaving the city was Cafe du Monde for their famous Beignets (basically a powdered donut, only much nicer).
Muffaletta
Overall I really enjoyed New Orleans. I realise that I only saw a very small part of the city and really wasn't exposed to the poverty and struggle that exists, especially since Katrina. While Bourbon Street is very touristy I think that much of the French Quarter is still authentic. It is a very musical city, with performers playing all sorts of instruments on the street at all hours of the day.
One thing I did not enjoy was Bourbon Street. First of all it smells like an open sewer. It is incredibly touristy with overpriced food and bars and seedy strip clubs. There was not a single redeeming quality to be found here. There was also no jazz, all of the bars here had rock or electronic music. Two streets either side of Bourbon and you'll find food and drinks that are twice as nice for half the price.
I definitely feel like there is more to see in New Orleans and hopefully I'll be able to return soon. One thing that I think we missed out on a little was having nice food. We should really have done our food tour at the start of the trip. If we had then we would have realised that many of the restaurants are very reasonably priced. Unfortunately we were stuck with the perception that eating out would be too expensive to do often.
The next post covers a trip to the swamp and some time off in Florida/Alabama.