sade028

We have a couple of things on the agenda today.  We want to find Frenchmans Street where the locals go to listen to Jazz and Blues, visit the New Orleans Museum of Art where there is a photography exhibition and we are booked to go on the Natchez Steam Boat dinner jazz cruise. First Frenchman Street.  The concierge gave us directions and off we headed after breakfast.  It was about a 10 block walk but it felt good to walk.  We arrived into Frenchman Street about 10am but nothing opens before 11am so we just wandered along the two blocks and checked out the upcoming music. We found the renowned Spotted Cat Music Club.  Almost missed it as it is such a small building. Not at all what we expected. The very unimpressive Frenchman Street where the "real" music happens The Spotted Cat Music Club We ambled our way back to the nearest tram station via the French Markets, and then boarded the tram to take us to the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). The French Quarter Mar...

We ordered an in room breakfast this morning as we had to meet the bus downstairs at 8.30am for our all day Oak Valley Plantation and Small Airboat tour. It took an hour and a quarter to get to the Plantation.  As we left New Orleans our very informative tour guide/driver talked about the devastation of Hurricane Katrina almost 17 years ago.  New Orleans and the surrounding area is very flat so you can well understand how it would flood.  The French Quarter where we are staying is the highest point in the city and only had a small amount of flooding but when you get to the outer areas, that are in fact below sea level, you can understand why it would flood. As we left New Orleans we passed a massive freshwater lake that was quite shallow, about 2 metres.  The water was feed from the Bayou.  Further on we were in scrubby swamp country where would do our Airboat tour later in the day. We once again crossed the mighty Mississippi River and now we were in sugar cane...

My husband had quite a "big one" yesterday and is slightly worse for wear this morning so we are having an easy day today.  On the agenda is a tram ride (trolley car) along St. Charles Street to the Pho Boy Festival at the end of the line.  St. Charles is a very long street, I would guess about 10kms, and it is a very popular ride for tourists.  Because the festival was on, the tram was very packed but all good fun. New Orleans has 75 festivals a year.  They celebrate anything and the Pho Boy seemed a little strange but we got to taste some delicious Pho Boys.  I forgot to get a photo of a Pho Boy but really all they are is a French Stick filled with any sort of filling you desire.  We tried one filled with spicy sausage, another with chicken but our very favorite was a toasted Pho Boy filled with a most delicious pulled pork filling.  I will try to get a photo over the next couple of days.  We didn't stay too long at the Festival because the stre...