18.06.2012 – 18.06.2012  33 °C

We got going a little later this morning than usual mainly because we knew we had all day to check out the sites and sounds of the French Qtr. With my trusty guide book in hand I endeavoured to take M and D around the French Qtr… After a whole two blocks I gave up the tour guiding gig primarily because my guide book’s map really didn’t show you which buildings the information was referring to! So instead, of a great exciting tour proudly brought to you by me, we just decided to wander and look at the architecture of the French Qtr. 🙂

We arrived down at Jackson Square (the old heart of New Orleans, well at least when it was French and Spanish) and discovered that we couldn’t go into either of the Louisiana Museums because they are closed on Mondays’! Damn.. Hmm.. what to do now? We decided to go and have a coffee and beignet (doughnuty thing covered in icing sugar) at Café du Monde, which is the place to have a coffee in the French Qtr to work out a new plan of attack. Our new plan was to continue our unguided tour of the French Qtr, head back to the hotel for a rest and head out for an arvo walking tour of the Garden district and Lafayette cemetery. The walking tour encompassed me wandering around the antiquey shops of Royal St and then heading back to our hotel for a quick rest and some lunch.

Our afternoon was really quite remarkable. It started with us taking the St Charles trolley car from Canal St out to Washington St in the Garden District. The Garden District is so named because originally each block only had four houses and all four houses had big gardens.. hence garden district. This was also the area that the American’s moved into. To explain what I mean I’ll give everyone a quick history lesson. France ‘discovered’ Louisiana and the Mississippi back in the late 1600s and designated the land the colony of “Louisiana” (named after the French King Louis XIV, the Sun King). The land was settled by French colonists in the early 1700s and New Orleans (among other towns) was born. New Orleans was named for the then regent of France, the Duke of Orléan. By the mid 1760s France hands control of Louisiana over to the Spanish govt (Louisiana was given as a present to the Spanish king who was the cousin of the French King, and incidentally also a Bourbon). The land returned to the French crown after Napoleon defeated the Spanish in the early 1800s. It was at this time that the Louisiana purchase was negotiated with the new Unified American states. The Union bought the lands of Louisiana for 14mil dollars from Napoleon. It was at this time that Louisiana became a part of the Union of American States. The Creoles (the French and Spanish aristocracy that lived in Louisiana) did not want to join the union as their interactions with American’s had made them seem dirty and uncouth (probably because there only real interactions they had, had with American’s was through the few fur trappers and boats men from the Mississippi. On top of this, American’s spoke English… no more needs to be said!).

The Creoles were not welcoming of the new immigrants into New Orleans so the Americans were not allowed to live in the French Qtr but instead built their own suburb on the other side of Canal St, which today is known as the Garden District. The suburb is filled with Antebellum (pre-civil war) mansions and homes and gorgeous old oak trees. It is truly beautiful!

Our walking tour began with us checking out the Lafayette cemetery. It is one of the above ground tomb cemeteries here in New Orleans. It is the protestant cemetery (the Catholic, Creole, cemetery is the St Louis cemetery near the French Qtr) and therefore is the American cemetery. It is built above ground, mausoleum style and has been used in many Hollywood films. One of the problems the early Creole settlers had was burying their dearly departed. This is because the water table is very close to the surface in this part of Louisiana. The settlers found that after some heavy rain their loved ones could ‘come back to life’ after their coffins (and themselves) floated back to the surface! So to ensure that their loved ones were given a more permanent resting place they started to build their final resting places above ground, mausoleum style! Surprisingly, some of the tombs are still in use! What I mean is that the tombs are family tombs, so when someone dies, the coffin and the remains are placed in side. One year and one day later (this is to ensure that the remains have passed thru a New Orleans summer) the tomb is re-opened and the coffin is discarded. The remains (I assume just bones?) are then interred at the bottom of the tomb with the other remains of the other family members. You literally get to rest with your ancestors for ever (well at least until someone destroys the cemetery or decides to study your bones for archaeological reasons!!). This cemetery was also the inspiration for Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire series. You can imagine Vampires living in these tombs….

Our tour was also thru the beautiful suburb of the Garden District. The suburb is filled with pre and post civil war mansions. Sandra Bullock, John Goodman and Nicholas Cage all call this suburb home and I reckon the cheapest real estate must be over 1mil!! The houses are just amazing.. I think I did more oohing and aahing in the first 5 mins than I had in the whole previous week!! That was until the heaven’s opened and I was suddenly drenched… And when I mean drenched I mean the only dry part of clothing I had was the insides of my shorts! No joke, we were satched! The rain bucketed down and we didn’t have either our rain jackets of our umbrellas…. My hat went from having a great starched brim into the limpest looking green hat ever!!! 🙂

Needless to say our walking tour was cut short (it really didn’t look like the rain was going to let up and we were SOAKED) and we jumped back on the tram back to the French Qtr. After a shower and fresh clothing we headed back downtown to find ourselves some dinner and drinks. Our restaurant of choice was on Bourbon St (but on the second level so we were overlooking the street) and the food was pure Creole fare, Catfish, Gumbo, Jambalya, Etouffee. Sadly, the food was mediocre at best. The Gumbo was like a three meat stewy soup and really lacking in flavour. The fried catfish was ok and the Jambalaya was yummy (plenty of chilly). All in all we think that the restaurant trades on location not on food! The real shining light of my dinner was the yummy chocolate brownie dessert I had to finish off my meal!!!! Our night finished off in the Jazz Master’s arena before we headed back for a well deserved sleep.

Song of the Day– LaBelle, Lady Marmalade