Day 31 New Orleans USA Day 3

We had a MUCH slower start to today. John and Georgie came to our room and we sat in the lounge for quite a while deciding what we were going to do today. Eventually we had a plan. Get a Street Car to the Garden District and have a walk around.

So we got onto google and the App Store to look for guided walking tours, all of them were booked out so we looked for self guided tours. Once we had some information we walked to Canal St (just 3 blocks away) and got a Saint Charles St Street Car down to 1^st St. Well we meant to get off on 1^st street but by the time we knew where we were we finished up getting off at 3^rd!

We walked back to 1^st and Deb started our tour, directing us around the streets like a true tour guide. We kept on bumping into some of the guided tours that operate the area, so we got a bit of their info and the info Deb had collected. An informative morning looking at quite a few of the grand old homes of the district. We also called into the old Lafayette Cemetery. Being so old, it was established in 1833, the cemetery is full, meaning no new crypts/vaults. There are  many crypts/vaults that house more than 10 peoples remains, and they just keep stacking them in. This cemetery, like most, needs a bit of TLC, it is slowly being reclaimed by nature!

We had lunch at a cafe on Magazine St and then got the Street Car back to Canal and then another down Canal to the end of the line at the waterfront. I needed something warm for when we go to John and Georgie’s place in Minneapolis, so we hit the Outlet shopping plaza. I got a jumper and Deb got a big bag of Lindt Chocolate (to share I hope), she thought it was a fair deal. 🙂

Tonight we went to Frenchman St for dinner and a bit of Jazz. We got the Street Car down Canal and then changed to go up to the end of the French Markets, an easy way to travel this city. On the way we called into the Ritz Hotel to have a drink and listen to some Jazz first. The Ritz was great, New York Jazz and very enjoyable. We returned to our hotel and joined up again with John and Georgie and caught the Street Cars. We started with drinks at the Apple Bar while we waited for our table at Adolfos Restaurant (Creole and Italian Cuisine). The band at the Apple bar was great, smooth music, not quite Jazz , but close, and the barman was a real character. Dinner upstairs was very good, but the servers could chill a little.

After dinner we went onto the Spotted Cat, the music was great, very chilled Jazz and an appreciative audience (at first). We were standing by the cigarette machine, watching and listening to the band play. And we got to meet a few of the locals, interesting and very polite bunch they are. 🙂

Eventually it was time to move on so we grabbed a taxi (did I mention it was raining, at night, something we were told it never did in NOLA*) to the Carousel Bar (it was recommended to us), but it just didn’t have the atmosphere we were looking for. So we walked back to our hotel. We had a great night full of music, great company and everything NOLA is famous for.

‘*      NOLA = New Orleans Louisiana