Day 15 & Day 16 - New Orleans, LA

We had two days in NOLA and tried to pack in as much as we could!

Day 1
First off, we needed a good breakfast to set us up for the rest of the day. We found a place called Cafe Fleur-de-lis and both decided to go for a traditional New Orleans breakfasts. Lee had shrimp with cheesy grits and a Bloody Mary with bacon. I had the Bourbon Street breakfast - Banana and Pecan pancakes with bacon and a large shot of Bourbon! One thing we have learnt in America is to box up left over food and take it with you. My pancakes lasted so we can could have them again for breakfast a couple of days later!

Then we headed off to find Mardi Gras World which offers a behind the scenes look at New Orleans Mardi Gras traditions. We ended up getting a little lost on the way and had to stop off in the New Orleans Harrah's. Whilst in there, we couldn't resist putting a couple of bucks in the Dolly Parton machine just in case we managed to win big! Sadly we didn't win but we did get a couple of 'free' drinks (you still have to pay the tip so they were $1 drinks really)!

Mardi Grad World was great fun. It lasted about 2 hours and included a video about the history of Mardi Gras and what happens in New Orleans, dressing up in the costumes, a walk around the factory where the make the items for the floats and then seeing the floats themselves. Here is our video of the tour:

After the tour, we walked over to Couch Butchers as we heard the do an awesome stuffed sausage called a Hot Boudin. It was so tasty. This is another New Orleans must-have food, there were quite a few and we did a lot of eating! It is a combination of cooked rice, pork, onions, green peppers and seasoning, all mixed together and put through a meat grinder before being stuffed into a sausage casing and then steamed. The taste was amazing! So full of flavour, we shared one but we should have taken home a dozen!

We needed to walk off some of the food we'd eaten today so took a walk along the Mississippi river front and enjoyed the view of the paddle boats going up and down. On our way, we also went past the monument for Hurricane Katrina. Whilst you wouldn't know from looking at the city that it was devastated by Katrina in 2005, there are little reminders everywhere you go of the continued impact it has.

NB: for those who noticed, Lee and I were the 'pink' twins today purely by accident. We both chose pink tops and then didn't realise until we'd already headed out for breakfast. Either we both like pink (which we do) or we now have some sort of weird clothing connection now we're married!


Day 2 
If you though we packed a lot into Day 1, we packed even more into Day 2!

We started the day off with a walk around the park near our hotel, it was called Armstrong Park, named after the famous trumpeter, composer, singer Louis Armstrong who was born and raised in New Orleans. The park was very pretty with lots of bridges over a little man-made river and little homages to the music and musicians of New Orleans.

We then jumped on a cable car to New Orleans City Park. We picked up a map of the park and could not believe how big it is, 1300 acres, that 50% bigger than central park in New York! There was no way we were going to walk 1300 acre's so we chose to walk around the sculpture garden and then do a little tour around the Botanical Gardens and Carousel Gardens Amusement Park. We didn't go into either of these attractions for two reasons - you needed to pay an extra fee and we didn't really have time to make use of the tickets and they were both full of kids on field trips from schools and summer camps!

A tip I was given by a New Orleans local whilst we were camping in St Joseph’s Peninsula was to skip the crowds going to Cafe Du Monde for coffee and beignets and instead head to Morning Call in the park. They were right, Morning Call was very quiet in comparison and mainly filled with locals rather than tourists. The coffee as really good, I think it was made with condensed milk, and the beignets tasted like freshly cooked doughnuts which we then covered in lots and lots of icing sugar.

We then headed back on the tram to St Louis Cemetery 1, the most famous cemetery in New Orleans. When we arrived, we found out that the only way into this cemetery was with a tour guide due to the poor state of the cemetery and the need to try to preserve and repair what is left. We hadn't arranged a tour so could only look over the wall.

We then got back on the tram, having now made really good use of the $3 ticket, and headed to the Garden District. This area was a real surprise to us. To start with, it looked very residential and whilst the houses were pretty and many had historical importance, it was a sleepy neighborhood. Then we found the bars, shops and restaurants as well as Lafayette Cemetery No 1, which was open to the general public. We had a great time in Garden District and really enjoyed the laid back and less hectic afternoon compared to Bourbon Street. For dinner, we managed to have another New Orleans classic, a Crawfish Boil with Oysters. Once we had discovered the knack of getting the meat out of the crawfish, it was lovely, even the oysters were tasty as they had been cooked in garlic, cheese and butter. It is making my mouth water remembering how good this meal was! Here is a short video we have made of our time in this area:

We finished our final night in New Orleans in a bar on our way back to the hotel as Lee was desperate for a tinkle and couldn't make it all the way home. The bar was pirate themed and we had a great time sitting at the bar talking to different people about the trip. The bar tender was lovely and even let us stay and chat to her whilst she locked up at midnight, so much for an early night! Sadly, I forgot to take photos but we do have 2 absinthe spoons that we were given to take home with us (not that we had any absinthe or would drink it normally, but the spoon are fun and a great reminder of a great day!).