Apart from the obvious tourist part of New Orleans that everyone has seen in films and photographs I had no idea what else to expect there. The central area and famous Bourbon Street was exactly as I imagined it to be, but a lot of the buildings and roads are in a pretty poor state of repair and N.O seems to be a very poor city.
We stayed in another AirBnb in a beautiful tree lined quiet residential street. Our room was accessed through a gate at the side of the house below and we had just a bedroom and bathroom, but they were both beautifully done and we didn’t need anything more than that.
I was pleasantly surprised at the very old, established and beautiful trees lining the street.
The houses are lovely and colourful and very narrow but deep, so are bigger than they look from the road.
It was carnival time in New Orleans and a lot of the houses were decorated. Mardi Gras starts on the 6th of January, and runs until ‘Fat Tuesday’, which is literally the French translation of the words Mardi Gras. The idea behind the celebration is that people should overindulge before giving everything up for 40 days. Leading up to Lent, Christians would eat all of the forbidden food that was left in their house so that their home would be free of temptation during the fasting period. That’s where the name Fat Tuesday comes from.
We found a couple of streets with much larger and expensive houses, and some of them had really made an effort with their decorations.
Purple, Yellow and Green are the main colours of Mardi Gras, and there were strings of beads everywhere.
More beautiful and old trees in a nice neighbourhood.
Seeing a traditional paddle steamer made my day.
There’s an interesting sculpture garden on the outskirts of New Orleans.
And finally, Louis Armstrong Park which pays homage to the jazz scene.
And here’s the great man himself.
That’s New Orleans ticked off my list 🙂 It was time to start the journey back to Merritt Island in Florida.
To be continued……….
