Journal of Our New Orleans Trip - Chapter 2

This is a continuation of my post on our recent trip to New Orleans. I believe I left us resting in our room after our Saturday morning walking tour of the French Quarter.

Our original plans included a cruise on the Steamboat Natchez, and a visit to the Aquarium of the Americas, but we decided we'd rather have a more relaxing and "laid back" weekend, so we didn't do either.

After resting a while Saturday afternoon, we dressed for dinner and walked over to Harrah's Casino, which is across the street from Windsor Court. Someone had recommended The Besh Steakhouse in Harrah's, and after making a nominal contribution to Harrah's, we enjoyed a delicious steak supper.

My poor little feet still had not recovered from walking miles and miles that morning, so we turned in early that night in anticipation of an early Sunday morning visit to Cafe du Monde.

7:00 AM, Sunday Morning, June 29th ...

Photo courtesy of neworleansmenus.com

We arrived at Cafe du Monde right at 7:00 a.m., and started our day off right with two orders of "melt-in-your-mouth" beignets.

New Orleans Photo courtesy of Sbuser

"Delectable" is the only word that comes to mind to describe these wonderful little fried puffs of dough covered in powdered sugar. In fact, Webster's should just have a picture of beignets next to the word delectable in their dictionaries. Anyone who has ever eaten one would know exactly what the word means.

[On a side note: One thing I was disappointed in was that it seems like most of the restaurants now carry Pepsi products, and being a devout Dr. Pepper addict, I wasn't happy about that. However, Middendorf's (remember the great seafood restaurant I mentioned in Chapter 1?) had Dr. Pepper in the little glass bottles which came with a glass filled with ice. It just doesn't get any better than that, in my humble opinion, folks!

Now, where was I? Oh, yes ... we finished our beignets and walked up on the River Walk to see the river which was quiet this time of day. Jackson Square is across the street from Cafe du Monde, so I took advantage of being up on the River Walk and shot these pictures of the Square and St. Louis Cathedral from across the street:

This beautiful ornate iron grill caught my eye as we were leaving Jackson Square ...

I thought this balcony garden was pretty, too, and if you look closely, you can see Mardi Gras ribbons and trinkets hanging from it ...

I captured this pretty bronze lady "people watching" beside her fountain at the French Market ...

Street musicians are a familiar sight all over the French Quarter. Most of them are very talented, too ...

Another thing of interest to me in the Quarter are the literally thousands of doors and gates that open onto the maze of streets and sidewalks. Many of the doors have decades of paint and varnish covering them; others are beautifully stained woods, and others are weathered and worn. If only they could talk, I'd love to know their history. I'd also love to get a peek behind them. Many open onto lavish homes or apartments filled with gorgeous antiques, crystal chandeliers, and paintings, and it's fun to imagine what lies beyond those old doors.

The same is true of the beautiful ornate iron gates that open onto lush green courtyards. Here is a peek through one of the gates I passed on our stroll ...

We passed this old building on our walk back to the hotel ...

It was probably built in the early 1900s, and I don't think Katrina can be blamed for its state of deterioration. I think it just suffers from years of neglect, and there are many just like it throughout the city ... what a shame.

Well, that brings us back to the hotel and it's time to pack and head home. We made a few detours along the way which I want to share with you, too, so I hope you will check back to read the final chapter of our "New Orleans Weekend."

Journal of a Weekend in New Orleans - Chapter 1

My husband and I recently traveled to New Orleans for a weekend getaway. Both of us were born and raised in northeast Louisiana, and have been to New Orleans many times, but this was our first trip since Katrina. I had said that I really didn't want to go back, but I'm so glad we did.

My first impressions of the downtown area and French Quarter were positive ones: It is cleaner than it was before Katrina, and there aren't as many people. If you've ever been to New Orleans and stood in line to get into a restaurant on a hot and humid evening, you'll appreciate that.

We had heard that service in restaurants and availability of cabs might be an inconvenience, but we didn't have any problems at all.

Like any large city, New Orleans still has its vagrants and you have to use common sense about not wandering "too far off the beaten path," but police and security folks were highly visible everywhere we went.

I'd like to share with you some of the places we went and a few of the sights we saw. New Orleans is a photographer's treasure trove. Everywhere I looked there was "a picture just begging to be taken" ... the good, the bad, the ugly ... people, architecture, history, arts.

I wish I had had more time to devote to taking pictures, but I was pleased with some of the shots I captured.

I hope you enjoy my journal of our trip as much as we enjoyed our stay in New Orleans.

Friday, June 27th ...

We left home around 11:00 a.m., and our first stop was Ponchatoula, Louisiana, which is about an hour North of New Orleans. Ponchatoula is known as "the Strawberry Capital of America," and also has several antique shops along its Main Street. I was disappointed in the shops. Everything was overpriced and I didn't see anything that caught my eye.

We didn't stay long and stopped for a late lunch about 12 miles down the road at Middendorf's in Manchac, which is 45 minutes north of New Orleans.

Middendorf's is a wonderful locally-owned seafood restaurant that has been there longer than most people can remember [since 1934]. For generations, Middendorf's has been a favorite stopping point for travelers from Mississippi and Louisiana, on their way to New Orleans. My husband had the shrimp po'boy and I had shrimp gumbo. We enjoyed it so much that we stopped again Sunday for lunch on our way home. If you're ever in the area, you should definitely add Middendorf's to your itinerary. You won't be disappointed.

As we approached New Orleans on I-10, the skyline was shrouded by low-lying clouds, with a circle of bright blue sky above it. I snapped this picture as we were driving down the interstate ...

We stayed at Windsor Court Hotel, which is downtown, close to the river. Here are some pictures of the courtyard entrance and the lobby (I wish I could say the red Ferrari is ours, but it's not)...

Our room was on the 20th floor and had a walk-out balcony which looked out over the Mississippi River. There was a thunderstorm our first night there and it was so beautiful -- like an early 4th of July fireworks show reflecting off the river.

Here are a few pictures I took from the balcony ...

Saturday, June 28th ...

Saturday morning we decided to explore the French Quarter, and were happy to see that it was relatively unchanged in comparison to the last time we were there. There were some buildings and shops with "For Sale" signs on them or boarded up, but for the most part, it was business as usual. Unfortunately, one of the shops that was vacant and for sale was a quaint little pastry shop called La Marquise, which was one of our favorite places to go for breakfast. It was just a little "hole in the wall," but had a beautiful garden courtyard in the back with tables and chairs where you could get away from the hustle and bustle of the Quarter and enjoy their scrumptious pastries. We were sad to see it was among the businesses that didn't survive Katrina's wrath.

On a side note: Tourism was, and is today, the number one industry of New Orleans, and although many businesses in the Quarter survived Katrina's physical impact, they couldn't survive the disaster's impact on the economy of New Orleans.

On a more cheerful note, here is a photo tour of our morning stroll through the French Quarter:

One of the first things we encountered was this little parade, complete with jazz musicians and people carrying fancy parasols, banners, and one lady was having a fine time just carrying a broom ...

You never know what you're going to see in the French Quarter, and these next pictures surely reinforce that concept.

The temperature was close to 90 degrees and this "Silver Statue Man," with his silver-painted face and hands and silver-painted layered clothing had to be sweltering in the heavy New Orleans humidity ...

An "Art Gallery" we passed ...

It was hard to resist making an appointment for an "angel reading" with Aimee, but I did ...

Only in New Orleans!

"It is better to go somewhere slow, than nowhere fast!"
Is that profound, or what? Gotta love it!

And you will meet a tall, dark, and handsome stranger ...?

I love this old building. It looks like it could be somewhere in France ...

After all that walking, we worked up an appetite and decided to go to Central Grocery on Decatur Street and get a muffuletta for lunch.

For those of you who have never experienced one, a muffuletta is an Italian sandwich on a circular loaf of soft Italian bread sliced horizontally and piled with salami, ham, and provolone, which are in turn topped with a wickedly spicy melange of chopped green and black olives fragrant with anchovies and garlic (just for the record, I pick out anything that remotely resembles an anchovy).

We sat on this shady bench in Jackson Square and "people-watched" while we ate our sandwiches and drank Barq's Root Beer.

After we ate, all that walking caught up with us and we decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a while.

I hope you have enjoyed my story of our trip so far, and will come back again to see more pictures and hear "the rest of the story."

[I have added a slideshow below which features more pictures, if you'd like to see them.]

Sincerely,

Way Down Yonder in New Orleans ...

I'm so excited! My husband and I are going to New Orleans for the weekend. After Katrina, I said I never wanted to go back, but we want to get away for the weekend and New Orleans is fairly close, so we decided to go. I'm going to take my camera and hope to get lots of pictures to share with you.

Today I bought a Fodor's 2008 New Orleans guide book which outlines some pretty amazing facts about the recovery of the city:

Nearly 80% of the city was flooded

Almost 200,000 homes (71%) were damaged by flooding

90% of businesses have reopened in downtown New Orleans

There are now 812 restaurants in Orleans Parish -- more than before Katrina

Almost all of New Orleans' major hotels have reopened

The French Quarter did not flood and damage to its collection of historic buildings was relatively mild. Shops, clubs, restaurants, and museums have reopened.

Is it safe to go? The tourist areas and populated neighborhoods are generally considered safe, but the city has seen rising crime rates, and looting continues in some of its underpopulated neighborhoods (which we will avoid).

We're going to stay at our favorite New Orleans hotel, Windsor Court, and our plans include a lunch cruise down the Mississippi River on the Steamboat Natchez, the city's only authentic steamboat stern-wheeler, and a visit to the Aquarium of the Americas. I get "seasick" fishing off of a pier, so I'm a little apprehensive about the steamboat cruise. I just hope I won't embarrass myself.

I also hope to visit some of the antique galleries and shops in the French Quarter, if my feet (and my sweet husband) don't give out on me.

Of course, any trip to New Orleans usually revolves around "Where do you want to eat?" ... and one of our favorite places is Cafe' du Monde, located on the river in the French Quarter. There's nothing like sitting on a bench at 6:00 a.m., sharing a bag of "melt-in-your-mouth" beignets and cafe' au lait, and listening to the sounds of the river and enjoying the sights and sounds of the French Quarter awakening. At least Katrina didn't take that pleasure away from us, and I can't wait.

I'll look forward to sharing our trip with you next week. Until then ... take care.

Sincerely,

On the Road to Recovery ...

This past weekend my husband and I visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and although we live in central Mississippi, we had not been to the Coast since that fateful Monday, August 29, 2005, when Katrina wreaked havoc on its beaches, old majestic oaks, historical landmarks, grand beachfront homes, and countless businesses, including its lucrative tourism business.

Of course, we saw the news reports of the devastation left in Katrina's path, but until I saw it with my own eyes, the full extent of the destruction didn't really sink in. How can you comprehend the power of a storm of such magnitude that it ripped up concrete roads and sidewalks and leveled high rise buildings, houses, casinos, literally everything in its path, and carried tons of sand inland.

All weekend, I was trying to comprehend what it must have been like those days and weeks and months after the storm, and I truly cannot imagine the sense of desolation and helplessness the survivors must have felt when they returned to where their homes had once stood.



As I looked at countless empty concrete slabs surrounded by the twisted and broken trunks and branches of 100-year-old oaks still standing, it was also difficult to imagine the overwhelming work, not to mention the danger, involved in the clean up. And for the most part, there was no electricity, phones, or water available for weeks afterward.


Although I think the natural beauty of the Mississippi Gulf Coast was forever changed by Katrina, the clean up and recovery efforts during the past two and a half years are remarkable.

Up and down the coastline, new hotels, high-rise condo and apartment buildings, restaurants, and sumptuous casinos are back in business, with new construction going on everywhere you look.

Thousands of homes are being built ...







And the white sand beaches are clean and beautiful,
and once again filled with people having a good time.



Although a lot of what Katrina destroyed can never be replaced, like the majestic old oaks, no storm, no matter how powerful, can ever take away the spirit and determination of the people who call the Gulf Coast home. And as we drove along the beaches ... from the town of Ocean Springs through Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Long Beach, and on to Bay Saint Louis ... three words came to mind which seem to embody the spirit of these amazing folks as they rebuild their lives, their homes, and their businesses. Those three words are Faith, Hope, and Charity, which are, indeed, alive and well on our beautiful Mississippi Coast.

I think this picture says it all ...




I have created a slideshow of photos from our trip which is posted below, and tomorrow I will post a couple of other stories related to "The Road to Recovery." I hope you will come back to visit again soon.