New Orleans is an old soul. 

She’s a dowager queen, regal, foreign, and mystical, cloaked in chiaroscuro - filtered light and darkened shadows.

She’s a woman masked for Mardi Gras, mysterious and irresistible.New Orleans is different from the rest of America, in culture, ethnicity, and spirit. You see it in the architecture, once elaborate, now cracked and etched with age.  You notice it in the melodious French street names: Dauphine, Chartres, Barbonne, and on restaurant menus: rémoulade, etouffée.  You hear it in the throaty “R” of the accent, in the music that wafts from open bars. You taste it in the distinctive cuisine emanating from deep in the bayous, flavored by influences from around the world.  You smell it in the staleness of night-before-booze along Bourbon Street and in the fragrant jasmine creeping up courtyard walls. You feel it in the humid air on your skin.   

Her ancient-looking, graceful brick and stucco architecture, layered and louvered, reflects her style. 

Fern-draped balconies, laced in black iron balustrades, overhang sidewalks.

Narrow doors, brightly painted, and darkened side entrances lead to moss-covered brick garden alcoves tucked out of sight, illusions of secret rendezvous.

Music is her soul - jazz, blues, zydeco, brass band - impromptu and improvised. She’s the birthplace of distinctive New Orleans jazz. Brass is her sound, haunting and jubilant.  Music seeps out of bar doorways.  It trails to the street from louvered windows.  It comes from street musicians earning a dime; from marching bands strutting their stuff; from funeral processions, grand send-offs, at first mournful, then joyful.      

Food, rich and robust, is her self-expression. Her flavorful Creole and Cajun cuisine comes from the rich harvest of her coastal waters - volumes of shrimp, oysters, crab, and crawfish - spiced with French, Spanish, and African influences, blended together in remarkable ways into gumbo, jambalaya, and bouillabaisse.   

Restaurants are her piéce de résistance. Non-pareil food is served in places equally remarkable in atmospherics - old world oyster bars; antique filled, old-style dining rooms with tiled floors, beveled glass and tin ceilings; plant-shaded courtyards, old warehouses, town houses, firehouses, and small cottages. Great chefs, Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse, started here, and the great culinary heritage of the region continues.

 The grand celebration of Mardi Gras defines her - an elaborate parody of life, a cacophony of sound and color - horns, umbrellas, costumes, crowns, feathers, beads, drummers,  revelers, royal krewes, parades, floats and processions.

A mixed-use city, New Orleans feels like a small town. Residences are layered over and behind shops, bars and restaurants, with locals living, shopping, and dining along her streets. She’s friendly and comfortable, and behind her mask of frivolity she’s proud and stately.

And yes, this proud dowager is haunted by Katrina, a name synonymous with suffering, and defined by devastation. But, like a tattered royal with her head held high, New Orleans is cherished for what she was, for what remains, and for what she can be.

After Katrina, what is there to see?  Plenty.  This historic old Creole city, steeped in another era as if in an absinthe haze, is simply a must see. The parts of town most visited by tourists were relatively unaffected by Katrina - the venerable French Quarter, known by its ancient name, Vieux Carré, the Garden District, the Warehouse District, the Central Business District, Uptown, and Mid-City/Esplanade. Sitting as they do on ridges in the delta with the Mississippi curving languidly around them, the floodwaters of Katrina lapped at them, dangerously close, but not over them. Here, hotels, bars, restaurants, shops, and attractions are as lively as ever, either undamaged or repaired and refurbished. 

So, eat, drink, walk, and dance in the street.  Indulge in fabulous food, move to the incredible music.  Take walking tours of above-ground cemeteries, gracious homes, and voodoo altars. Go into old churches, buy a piece of local art, and yes, even strings of beads.  See all things Mardi Gras: memorabilia-filled museums, places where the elaborate floats are made, costume houses, and mask makers.

Cruise on a paddlewheel steamboat along the Mississippi, the great river that gave the city life. Ride the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar. Take the kids to the Louisiana Children’s Museum, to City Park, to the Audubon Aquarium and Audubon Zoo. Antique along Royal Street or Magazine Street. See Degas paintings and more in the New Orleans Museum of Art. Wander through the French Market. 

Brunch at Brennan’s, savor chicory coffee and a sugary beignet at Café du Monde, lunch on a poor boy at Johnny’s Po-boys. Try the oyster sampler at Arnaud’s, shrimp rémoulade at Antoine’s, redfish meuniére at Delmonico, bread pudding soufflé at Commander’s Palace, all venerable New Orleans institutions. Taste Creole gone contemporary at Nola or Ralph’s on the Park …and the list goes on. Cruise down Bourbon Street, but look beyond it. Clubs and lounges are popping up in other areas too.  Find them in Faubourg Marigny and in the Central Business and Warehouse Districts.   

Head off the beaten path on tours deep into Cajun country through eerie, moss-draped swamps and bayous, or on tours of plantations of another era, like lovely Oak Alley Plantation, which dot River Road from one side of the Mississippi to the other.   

Even Katrina’s devastation is an attraction, but not in a morose way.  The Hurricane Katrina Tour is carefully designed to provide an understanding of why such devastation happened, and why this special city matters, spiritually, historically, and economically. 

Go to New Orleans.  Despite her tragedy, she offers more than most cities do at their best.    Go to feel the spirit, to fully enjoy the bon temps.  By your presence and through your enjoyment, you’ll help her rebuild.  Go, because she beckons.
  

Sponsored by Trusted Tours & Attractions.
www.TrustedTours.com

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