Exploring New Orleans

We've been looking forward our trip to the US for a while now - so we were very keen to jump on the plane and head westwards ! We had a rather ambitious plan, first survive Mardi Gras in New Orleans, then drive across Mississippi and Alabama over to Florida, tour around there for a bit, and finish off in Miami, from where we were flying back to Nice.

Our journey to New Orleans wasn't what one would call smooth flying. We had a changeover in Atlanta, which we missed due to a ridiculously long queue at immigration. I wonder how long (or short!?) those queues will get if Trump ever gets elected? After a nail-biting wait to see if we would get on the next flight to New Orleans, we were finally the last two persons to board the flight! Once in New Orleans, there was some more suspense in store for us, as it seemed that they had lost Mathilde's bag - but in the end, they found it!

So, the drama done with, we caught a cab to our Airbnb apartment, located in the Bywater district, a couple of miles from the French Quarter. Our host was kind of there to meet us - actually she was all dressed up for Mardi Gras, so only had time to tell us where our room was and what the door code was. The house we were staying at is for sure about as typical as New Orleans gets - we were staying in a shotgun house (that's a funny name for a type of house !?

It denotes a narrow and long wooden house, which were popular all over the US but in particular in New Orleans from the end of the Civil war until the 1920's). The house, and our room, contained all sorts of interesting Mardi Gras/New Orleans memorabilia - it's been decorated with a very personal touch, let's put it like that.

We were rather tired after our long trip, so we fell asleep pretty much straight away. We got up early in the morning, eager to explore New Orleans. We decided to walk to the French Quarter, as it wasn't all that far away. We stopped by for a proper American breakfast - that is, fried eggs, potatoes, sausage, etc. You name it, it was pretty much all in there. Breakfast is possibly my favourite meal in the US!

The food bit out of the way, we carried on into the French Quarter, passing by the trendy Marigny neighbourhood. The French Quarter is just as pretty as it's famous - it must be one of the most well-preserved historic neighbourhoods in the US. It's a bit misnamed actually, as most of the buildings in the French Quarter actually is from the Spanish Era (New Orleans became Spanish 1763). Of course, the French Quarter was even busier than usually this time of the year, with the Mardi Gras festivities being in full swing (we were wondering how crazy it gets on Tuesday!?).

After spending the morning just walking around and soaking up the atmosphere (there was loads, with the Mardi Gras decoration up, and people already in a rather festive mood), we headed for lunch. We decided to go for po boys - one of the many New Orleans culinary specialities. It's basically a sandwich - we decided to go for Johnny's Po Boy shop, a real institution, apparently. We were a bit underwhelmed, to be honest. There was a really long wait, and the sandwiches weren't that spectacular in the end.

We then carried on our exploration of New Orleans. We checked out Jackson Square, the main square in the French Quarter, where Saint-Louis cathedral is also located. A rather pleasant place - rather busy with all the Mardi Gras related activity (I particularly liked the very lightly dressed crazy bearded lunatic offering "love farts" to everybody). We crossed the railroad tracks and checked out the Mississippi river.

We then made our way to Canal street, which boarders the French Quarter. This is one of the main focal points of Mardi Gras, as all the Mardi Gras parades come across here. There was actually one on this afternoon - pretty cool stuff. it's a bit like the Nice carnival, with big, colourful carts demonstrating various themes parading along the streets.

Except that the mood is certainly more festive, and people don't hesitate to dress up and paticipate. In Nice, one gets the impression it's all about the tourists, whereas in New Orleans one gets the impression it's really a carnival for the locals (even if there are of course loads of tourists, too).

With the added benefits of the free goodies they kindly share with the audience (especially bead collars - and no need for ladies to bare their chest to have one here!). All in all, fantastic fun! Just as we'd imagined Mardi Gras

After checking out the parades for a bit, we walked through downtown into the garden district - just a gorgeous New Orleans neighbourhood. It's kind of similar to Bywater, where we stay, but definitely richer. Impressive historic houses line up the peaceful streets (well, I suppose they are normally peaceful, no place in NoLa is peaceful during Mardi Gras!).

For dinner, we decided to have some fancy New Orleans fare, so went to SoBou, a rather classy-looking place in Chartres Street (a street we seemed to keep walking up and down during our visit for some reason?). An excellent choice! Sometimes, fine dining type food disappoints us in the US, but this place came up with the goods. An excellent service, tasteful interior decoration, and most importantly, great food for a quite reasonable price.

The next morning, we got up bright n' early again, and ended up having another fantastic American breakfast at Satsuma cafe - I highly recommend this place, if you should ever find yourself in the Bywater neighbourhood in New Orleans. We then walked to the French Quarter again, enjoying the historic houses with their quirky Mardi Gras decoration. We were enjoying NoLa more and more!

We spent the rest of the morning kind of randomly wandering around the French Quarter, as we waited for our next adventure - the bus transport out to the Bayou! Our first impression of New Orleans was certainly a highly positive one - expectations had been high but so far, New Orleans has even surpassed them!