Saturday, November 12, 2016
 |
| Louis Armstrong Park |
We got an early start on the day, heading to Café Du Monde
(Café of the World) to try the beignets. The café has been around since 1862! The beignets (French doughnuts) are smothered
in powdered sugar so eating them is a bit of a challenge. They were pretty
good. I did awesome and didn’t get any powder on myself, my sister on the other
hand got powder all over her pants! Luckily it wiped off!
 |
| Andrew Jackson - Jackson Square |
After our morning treat, we walked around the French Quarter
area and headed to the Louis Armstrong Park. They were setting up for the Treme
Creole Gumbo Festival, but nothing was happening when we were there and we
never got a chance to head out there later in the day. The park is pretty, with bridges, sculptures,
fountains and gardens. Back in the day, the park was home to Congo Square,
which was a place that slaves gathered on Sundays to sing, play drums, sell
homemade goods and socialize.
The Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve French
Quarter Visitor Center opened at 9am, so we checked that out. There were some
displays of local culture to view at the French Quarter visitor center.
 |
| St. Louis Cathedral - Jackson Square |
We had arranged to take a walking tour of the French Quarter,
which met in Jackson Square. Jackson Square adeptly had a statue of Andrew
Jackson on horseback. St. Louis Cathedral is located in the square. The
Cathedral is the oldest Cathedral in North America – founded in 1720! We opted
to try the Free Tours by Foot (you tip them as to what you think the tour was
worth – other companies often charge about $20). Our guide was Kathy
Harrell. There were a lot of tours to
pick from, many of them offered at more than once per day. The tour seemed very popular, as ours was
pretty much full (1 space left). I would
suggest booking your tour a few days in advance. The guide will email you the
details about where to meet and other miscellaneous information. Our tour started with a background on the
local history and then we proceeded to walk around the French Quarter, learning
about additional facts as we went. The tour lasted about two hours. The guide
gave us all sorts of recommendations, we selected our lunch based on one of
them – Nepolean’s. They are well known for the Pimm – a gin based drink. The food was just okay, but Mike and my
sister liked the Pimm’s. We had to wait about 15-20 minutes for a table. While
we were waiting for the table we went down the street to Leah’s Pralines.
Leah’s Pralines has been a main stay in New Orleans since 1944. There were a
lot of different samples. We brought some Bacon Pecan Brittle for our dad – I
am sure he will love it!
 |
| Colorful Houses in New Orleans |
The New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park Visitor Center is
under construction so there is a temporary visitor center set up at the Old
Mint. The Old Mint itself had a nice
display on the main floor of the building – lots of pretty old coins. The
second floor of the building is set up with the Jazz stuff.
We had been out for quite a while and decided to go back to
the house for a rest before venturing back out for dinner. We decided to try
some pizza for dinner, so we headed to a place called Mona Lisa. Very cute
little place - Mona Lisa’s everywhere you looked. The pizza was good, as was
the garlic bread. The place was quite busy, we had a 20 minute wait, but by the
time we left the line was much longer.
We wondered over to Bourbon Street, but it was pretty busy and we
decided just to head back to Frenchman Street before heading back to the house.
No comments:
Post a Comment