Exploring N'Awlins

Another warm day, and first thing we did in the morning was to check out St. Louis Cemetery 1 and the Welcome Center before we went to breakfast in the Café Beignet, a nice courtyard café with live music. In the morning the city always looks kind of clean and refreshed, store and restaurant owners hose down the walkways, garbage cans are emptied, streets are empty, delivery trucks block the streets, not many tourists around yet. We love this time of the day in New Orleans, when the "Old Lady" just awakes. First music groups are getting ready at around 10 am, psychics set up their tables in front of the cathedral, "night owls" are struggling to find their way home (where ever that may be), first tourists slowly crawl out of their hotels...



The New Orleans Collection, to which we orginally went for the Andrew Jackson exhibition, was a good first stop, since we always ignored the 2nd floor historic exhibition, which is really instructive, with very knowledgeable docents in each section. With our guidebook and camera in hand we walked all over the French Quarter to check out shops, restaurants and sights and stopped at the Presbytere to see the fantastic Hurricane Katherina exhibition again. On to Marigny, the nightlife and gay neighborhood of town with many music venues, which partly look pretty shabby from the outside (see pic), but offer excellent music for free or for decent prices in the evening.

Passed by the Frenchmen Hotel, which was the very first hotel we ever stayed in, thanks to Christine, in the 1990ies, and it's still in good shape. Headed on for the Music Factory, our favorite music store, which recently moved from the French Quarter to this neighborhood. Good thing is, that it's less cramped now, that they do have A/C and a larger stage (for free! concerts), it's roomier and brighter than before, on the other hand it lost some of its shabby atmosphere and its convenient location. Of course, we couldn't restrain to buy two CDs, this shop which is focused on local music (New Orleans, Cajun, Zydeco, Brass Bands, Jazz, Blues etc.)is just a paradise for music lovers and prizes are very decent.

Next stop: The Mint, where unfortunately the great Jazz Collection never was brought back, on to the French Market and the newly introduced Farmers' Market, taking place on wednesday afternoons. Seems like New Orleans is getting more "creative" and chic, with some pretty fancy producers mingled in. It's good to see something new and fresh coming up. No concert this afternoon in the Jazz Historical Park building,unfortunately, another good spot to experience N.O. music for free.

Having walked a couple of miles on concrete, we came back to the hotel around 5 pm with tired feet to freshen up and get dressed for our 7 pm dinner in Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse. It was so much fun to meet Christine again, who was the first tourism rep ever who assisted us in trip planning in the 1990ies and who sort of "introduced" us to the business. At the time we did research for our very first guidebooks: one on the U.S. South in total and one on New Orleans. The three of us had a good evening and besides enjoying crabcakes, steaks, shrimps and desserts, we discussed everything from tourism to "old school" work ethics to politics to football and best quarterbacks. Fortunately, here in New Orleans even the speed in serving and clearing up is much slower than in other places!