News From New Orleans #2: A Walk Through the French Quarter.


 Jazz is not only the soundtrack of New Orleans, it is also part of the molecular structure of this city.  You can just feel it in the air, pulsing and lilting through the air as you pace its streets of secrets, contrasts, beauty and history.

The drive up the Poydras Street takes you from the exposed brick warehouses of the past

through to the fancy office and hotel blocks of the Central City District.  The photo above is of the view from my hotel room.

The Mississippi River runs like a ribbon along the banks of the French Quarter and the Warehouse / Arts District.  It’s a busy body of water with boats running up and down it all day for both business and pleasure.

Our hotel is connected by an indoor walkway to the Riverwalk shops which feature both a selection of outlets and a food court.  I will go ahead and surprise you buy saying that I am yet to visit any of the outlet stores.  My suitcases have banned me.

But a coffee and beignet (pronounced ben – yaaayyy as our server taught us) stop at the iconic Cafe Du Monde?  There’s always room for that.

The Riverwalk branch of Cafe Du Monde is a sister store to the original in the French Quarter.  It’s beignet are so famous you can even by the mix to take home and bake them for yourself.

A good old cafe au lait made with their own blend of coffee which features chicory in it (a throwback to times when coffee was scarce) was our beverage of choice and a serve of beignets conveniently contained three pastries, one for each of us.  It might look like those beignets are drowning in icing sugar but the powdery sweetness is the  perfect contrast to the doughy textured, surprisingly unsweet beignet.  They weren’t as greasy as I thought they would be.  All the better for eating in between sips of excellent cafe au lait.

We walked from our hotel to the French Quarter.  It wasn’t a long walk but we stopped often for photos and pit stops to buy sunscreen and bottled water.

The United States Custom House.

It was like walking onto a movie set so frequent and vibrant were the sightings of New Orleans icons.

I did not know that trams ran through New Orleans.

A colourful bicycle with samples of pralines in its ‘boot’.

The fire station.

A cycling tour which travelled with its own jazz band.

Chilli sauces and spice rubs for sale.  I should bring some home for my aunty and uncle who are both keen and adventurous cooks.

The entrance to The French Market decorated in honour of the Creole Tomato Festival.

Double doors doubling as display racks for arts and crafts on sale at the market.

The plaque at the entrance of Jackson Square, named after President Andrew Jackson.

Horse and buggies for hire at the gates to the square.

The park inside the square is an oasis of tranquillity and greenery.  The perfect place to rest your aching legs and to give your eyes and ears a break from the street party outside the gates of the square.
The central statue of the park is a bronze sculpture of President Jackson riding his horse.

St Louis Cathedral was designated a minor basilica by Pope Paul VI.  The buildings on either side are the Cabildo (the old city hall) and Presbytere (orinigally built to house monks, was then the site where papers for the Louisiana Purchase was signed and is not currently a museum).

I’ll leave you now with a series of photos I took along our walk.  

Buildings that caught my eye.

A hidden murals and sculpture I found through and archway near the markets.

Streetscapes.

And this row of shop houses whose colours and decorations jumped out at me.  We were blessed with a fine and cloudy day for this walk and our photos benefited greatly from the weather.  I  love the keyboard bunting tied across the terrace of the orange building.

Busy but relatively uneventful day ahead for me now.  Work stuff begins in an hour and I need some Starbucks to bring with.

Cheerio!


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