Blogs from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, North America - page 19

Nightime on the City of New Orleans Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee Halfway home, we'll be there by mornin' This morning, before the sun even thought about coming up, we headed for the airport. For a 6:30 in the morning flight we left home at 4:45 am. Such is the state of air travel... two hours before a departure and a bushel of hassles. Makes one yearn for those times when life was much simpler. Our steel bird arrived in New Orleans at 9 am, on time. Since we did not have to board the Pullman Journey's coach until 1 p.m., we hoped to find lockers at the train station, No lockers. With trepidation, knowing full well, had we been at an airport, what the airlines' response would be if we were to enquire about securing ... read more

After Memphis our next (and final) stop in the USA was New Orleans. Our timing was almost ideal as we arrived once the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac was basically all sorted. The one problem we did find, however, was that the Amtrak trains were all sold out on the dates we wanted to travel, possibly because everyone else had waited for the storm to clear before travelling too. And this is how it came about that Louise and I found ourselves, once again, aboard a greyhound bus. This time the journey took 12 hours so it was significantly worse than our journey from Nashville to Memphis, although the people on board were notably less dodgy than those we'd previously encountered on that earlier journey. We arrived in Nola some time around 9pm and one of our ... read more

Friday-August 24, 2012 On Day 3 we left Biloxi for a stop in New Orleans. The French Quarter was as we remembered it from our previous visit. From Harrah's we walked about 15 minutes to Cafe Du Monde for beignets and coffee. On our return walk we passed St. Louis Cathedal in Jackson Square and the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. The Visitor's Center at Jean Lafitte's contains a small museum and gift shop. Lafitte was both a pirate in the Gulf of Mexico, and a hero in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. A very fascinating man. By noon we were back on the road for the 5 hour drive to Springhill Suites by Marriott in Bossier City, our home for the night. Interstate 49 was an unexpected surprise. ... read more

Well we are in love with New Orleans! We started off our day visiting Jackson Square which is full of street artists with their artwork on display, supposed “fortune tellers” and queues of horses and carriages. All of the paintings were cool and funky but one artist’s work caught Scotty’s eye. Despite liking a lot of her pieces he had to settle for a smaller one that would fit in the backpack! We’ve been seeing “Po Boys” advertised in restaurants everywhere and wondered what they were. Well we had one each for lunch and they are a 10” long, 3” high sandwich; definitely filled us up! Just like at Venice Beach there are so many quirky and unique things we want to buy but won’t be able to bring home! Although one stall had loads of ... read more

After an unpleasant bus journey we finally arrived in our New Orleans hotel at 8am. Luckily they were able to check us in early so we took advantage and had a yummy breakfast and a catch up on sleep before heading out for some lunch. We found a small diner along Bourbon Street which had three gay waiters and an old style jukebox (the stereotypical American diner). This is the most unique city we have explored so far; one street is full of art galleries and the one next to it is full of bars with live music. Up each side street there were rows of picturesque houses but some streets had construction work, from the on-going recovery after hurricane Katrina. One thing that impressed us both, was nothing to do with the city, a dog ... read more