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20 Top things to do in New Orleans

Here is a list of top things to do in New Orleans!

After the madness of Mardi Gras, I discovered NOLA’s real face: the one without the parties, the parades and the costumes. I liked it so much, I made a list of indispensable things to do in New Orleans. Most activities and visits can be combined to make a day tour as suggested below. And bonus, some places have been recommended to us by a local with a great taste! Thank you again Susan if you read my post! Let’s start!

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DAY 1: the French Quarter

Saint Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square, French Quarter, New Orleans

1. Visit the French Quarter, the first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when thinking about New Orleans. Its charms produce feelings of romance and nostalgia with its beautiful architecture, historical monuments and landmarks: Bourbon Street; Jackson Square; Saint Louis Cathedral; the French Market (so lovely) and so on… A must visit!

2. Order a muffaletta for lunch from the Central Grocery and Deli (923 Decatur St). This is where the whole M story began… A muffaletta is a sandwich created by Sicilian immigrants arriving in mass to New Orleans. Farmers used to stop at the Central Grocery to buy all the ingredients for a muffaletta sandwich: cold meats, olive salad and cheese. The owner of the Deli then had the idea to offer ready made sandwiches. The round sesame bread is stuffed with salami, ham, mortadella, olive salad and different cheese. Half a sandwich costs around 10 USD. It was more than enough to fill me for the rest of the day!

3. Watch steam boats on the Mississippi: do not forget to watch the steam boats touring on the Mississippi. There is a promenade not far from Café du Monde. Those boats remind me of the Tom Sawyer cartoons I was watching as a kid. Steam boat tours are also available. I have no recommendation because we did not do one.

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Day 1 afternoon breaks: Beignets and Bloody mary

Café du Monde, New Orleans

4. Drink coffee and eat beignets at Café du Monde (800 Decatur St): for your afternoon break, take a sit at Café du Monde, it is an institution in NOLA. Here you can order beignets (square French doughnuts covered with powdered sugar) with chicory-scented café au lait (milk coffee). The place is great for people watching. To avoid long queues, come before 9am or late in the evening – like we did! The Café is open 24 hours a day all year long, so you will have loads of opportunities to eat beignets.

5. Sip a bloody mary from the Golden Lantern (1239 Royal St): At sundown, stop at this bar for the best bloody mary in town! Their cocktail is really tasty and is served with pickled green beans and chili. I can’t get enough of that taste and could drink it at anytime of the day (No, I am not an alcoholic…) so I squeezed in a stop every time I was nearby!

DAY 2: Cycling around New Orleans & Po boy for lunch

6. NOLA is much more than just the French Quarter, don’t miss out by not exploring the surroundings. Cycling is the best way for this part. We got a lend of a bike but I am sure, it is possible to rent one in the city. Our first trip was towards Garden District. We started on Saint Charles Avenue and saw the famous street cars, then changed to Prytania Street, cycled under the shadows of the big trees, admiring old buildings on the way. We also saw parts of Magazine Street, famous for its shops and boutiques.

Lafayette cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana

7. We stopped at the Lafayette cemetery (1416-1498 Washington Ave), that you can visit for free. It is not a big cemetery but it was interesting to read some of the tombstones. They gave a glimpse of the past, people’s stories and how they died. You can see here above the ground tombs, a popular style in New Orleans.

Oyster po boy from Dolomise’s Po Boy

8. For lunch, we headed to Dolomise’s Po Boy (5240 Annunciation St). This is a local spot off the beaten tracks, even better reason to go. There is wide selection of Po Boys offered here. A Po boy is a typical sandwich from Louisiana. It is a baguette generally filled with meat, breaded fish or seafood, lettuce, mayo and ketchup. Without hesitation, I chose the oyster one (I love oysters, whenever I can I order them as you might remember from my Espai Kru post). Yummy, tasty, delicious. Alas, I could not enjoy it with a beer. I forgot my ID so the barman won’t let me go close to any types of alcohol.

Day 2 afternoon: Saint Louis’ Park and Frenchmen Street

In Saint Louis Park

9. After lunch, we had enough time left to come back to the city. So we decided to have a snooze at Saint Louis’ Park, at the edge of the French Quarter.

It is a pretty cool park built to honor Louis Armstrong. It has a famous arch entrance, sites like Congo Square where slaves met in the 1800s, (funky) sculptures, duck ponds and lots of spaces for relaxing. We had a nap under the sun on the grass.

10. In the evening, we went out for drinks and dancing on Frenchmen street. There you can find a lot of bars, we chose the Blue Nile. This venue is known as the original music club that gave birth to the music culture on Frenchmen Street. They had a concert on and dancing was good. When we came out, an energetic brass band was playing in the street. On our way home, we discovered the Frenchman Art Market with handicrafts from local and regional artists. Pretty cool market to explore!

Frenchman market in Frenchmen Street

DAY 3: Swamp tour and local food

11. This day started with a swamp tour. Swamps are another thing for which Louisiana is famous for, as it has a lot of forested wetlands. We chose Cajun Pride Swamp Tours by boat. The swamp was their own so we were alone. The tour lasted 4 hours and cost 12 USD (as found on a promotion website). We roamed the swamp in search of alligators but did not find any interesting animal. Bouh! At the end of the tour, surprise…the captain took out some…live snakes out of a basket. Not for me… but he also had a baby gator I could hold. So although it was a pity we did not see any wild animals, the tour was still enjoyable.

Swamp nearby New Orleans

12. For lunch, we stopped at Lil Dizzy’s café (1500 Esplanade Ave). We stumbled upon it and decided to try. It is not fancy, but it is a great little local spot again. We love local spots. The staff is very friendly. The café served a buffet for around 15 USD with local food: gumbo, jambalaya, fried chicken (OMG!!! the BEST fried chicken I have ever had). Surprisingly, they also had an amazing bread and butter pudding dessert. For me, this is a typical British/Irish dessert and I did not expect to find it here.

Day 3 afternoon: Treme and cycling to City Park

13. We stayed in Treme so we knew the neighborhood but have a cycle around on your way to City Park (activity nbr 14).

Shotgun house in Trême, New Orleans

14. After lunch, cycle to City Park – you might need more time here as there are a lot of places to visit: the Botanical Gardens, the Carousel Gardens Amusement Park, the Train Garden etc. For us, half a day was more than enough because we came to see the 5-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden with more than 60 sculptures. They are valued at $25 million. I love the art exposed here, it is fresh and I can relate to it.

Statues from the Besthoff Sculpture Garden, City Park, NOLA

DAY 4: Plantation visit

Oak alley at the Oak Alley plantation

15. Visit a plantation: a trip to New Orleans will not be complete without a plantation visit. There are a few open to visitors, unfortunately, none of them is reachable by public transportation. The only option is a tour without a car. The visits are not cheap. For the Oak Alley and Laura plantations with Tours by Isabelle, I paid 96 USD. The driver picked me up in a van. The two plantations are completely different. Laura Plantation is a creole plantation. It does not have the grandeur of Oak Alley but it is still a charming building. The tour guide (not our driver) almost made me cry with her dramatic and detailed account of slavery as it happened on the plantation. They kept original slaves’ pricelists with their names, age, talents and skills. I cannot believe human beings were treated like cattle. Oak Alley’s guides on the other hand were dressed up in period costumes. The plantation is more luxurious and the view on the actual oak alley is impressive. On the way back to the city, we passed in front of the Evergreen plantation where scenes of Django Unchained were shot.

End of the trip with an unforgettable jazz evening!

16. Dine at the Palm Court Jazz Café (1204 Decatur St): New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz so in New Orleans, you cannot avoid a soirée at a jazz club…Our very kind and NOLA knowledgeable “guide” invited us to enjoy great traditional jazz and tasty Cajun food in this dinner club situated in the French Quarter for our last night in the city. The Palm Court Jazz Café is housed in a beautiful restored 19th century building. The place decoration is elegant, the food tasty, the service warm and impeccable. We saw a lively and energetic band, an equally lovely and energetic owner, Nina Buck, who kept on inviting guests to dance while moving on the dance floor herself from her 80s (I think she was that age)! Such enthusiasm and passion is unforgettable!

Additional suggestions

Here are places and things I would have loved to do but could not because of time:

17. Back Street museum as mentioned in my post “Living Mardi Gras in New Orleans”

18. Hansen’s sno-bliz: this is a snowball stand/shop. I saw pics. Honestly, they look yummy.

19. The Voo Doo Spiritual Temple: as Voo Doo is another big part of the culture in NOLA.

20. The National WWII Museum

Living Mardi Gras in New Orleans!

In my post about Madeira, I promised you a story about my trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans (NOLA). Now is the time.

2016 was for me the year of the bucket list ticks. On top of my list, I had Mardi Gras in New Orleans. This party is as famous as the Carnivals of Rio or Venice. I also met with a friend of mine there. She moved to the US so the trip was an opportunity to see her! Our plan was to spend two days to attend the Mardi Gras and 4 days to see the real NOLA away from the madness.

Getting to New Orleans, Louisiana, US

View from the sky of a Mississippi bridge

I found a very cheap flight (over 500 Euros) even though I booked it two weeks before departure. It was a kind of a spur of the moment. The best part of my flight was the Mississippi view from above. Such a huge river! Those bridges crossing it were impressive too… I changed some money at t

he airport and I do not recommend it. The exchange rate was very bad and the commission really high (over 10 USD).

I took the airport shuttle to the city for 24 USD. To compare, a taxi for the same trip costs around 35 USD. I was on my own therefore the bus choice was better value. The bus dropped me off at my hostel and did the same with the other tourists. That was pretty handy. The driver was pretty cool and conversational too and gave me some useful information about the area I was in.

I stayed in the Marquette Hostel, in a very beautiful old building, and in a room for 4. It was the only place I could find in a decent enough location to see the parades and that would not cost me a fortune. Still…paying 50 USD for a dorm bed is a bit dear! Thankfully, I only had one roomie!!

I was on my own on the first night as my friend would arrive the day after. The location was perfect, just around the corner from St Charles Avenue where the Krewe of Bacchus was on. A krewe is one of the organizations parading during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

First Mardi Gras parade

Bacchus float

The Bacchus krewe had impressive and spectacular floats. All on the “Bacchus” theme… What a surprise! This event was memorable being my first parade! One thing to know about Mardi Gras in New Orleans is that people on floats throw beads and toys and other things to by standers.

That night I waited a while before getting something. I finally caught the eye of someone “well placed”. The secret number one of surviving and enjoying a Mardi Gras parade is to get connected. Once someone in power – on a float – notices you, he will send over tons of goodies. Or in my case, one bead…Yeah!

Murphy’s (positive) law helping, I started to receive more beads and cups afterwards so I started to be more ambitious. I now wanted bags of beads, bam! A football ball, bam! But when I tried to get a teddy bear, nothing! That night was unlucky.

Travelling experiences

When I was about to sleep, I asked my roomie if she also smelt gas. “Is that what the smell is?””Yes!” We decided to go and speak to the staff. Safety first. The staff: “it is pretty normal. The pipes are old”. But no, we could not open the window because rats were going around the city. Mmm… What to do? After a little debate, we decided to risk rats bites and plague over dying gassed.

My friend joined me in the morning. We had breakie in a typical American dinner, the Trolley stop café. We experimented the huge pancake that could feed 5 people, cops eating in a corner, the waitress refilling coffee. Am I in an American movie??? This place was great for breakfast and experience!

Treme wall

Our B&B host kindly offered us to stay with him until our room was ready (two nights later) saving us from staying 25km outside the city. We were planning our route to get to the B&B when a third roomie that appeared in the night offered us a ride. Awesome! I love travelling… You never know what happens next.

She was Caucasian, married a Native American man and lived in an Indian Reserve. Her husband just died and she was on a soul searching trip. Her soul was so lost, we could not even find the right direction with the GPS on. I am gently kidding. I was very grateful to her for her offer.

Our host was an Englishman studying jazz and living in Treme. Treme, America’s oldest black neighborhood and birthplace of Jazz. Could not dream of a better place to stay. Yet I apprehended staying in Nola. It was number 7 of the top 30 Murder capitals of America in 2016 according to neighborhoodscout.com.

Going around the French Quarter

Old building in the French Quarter

Treme was only 15mn walk from the French Quarter. And that afternoon, we visited the French Quarter with its colonial architecture. I felt like in a movie – just without the crinoline dress. We walked through the famous Bourbon Street, the street of decadence with all the bars, the partying, the drinking… The street where preachers stating being homosexual is a sin stand alongside free huggers and the same homosexuals…Quite interesting! I even saw a girl showing her breasts in exchange for beads. I thought that was an urban legend. It was not a very pretty sight either.

The balconies were decorated with the Mardi Gras’ colours: yellow, purple and green. People were out having fun dressed up or not. By the way, going to Mardi Gras equals going to a party. So always have your ID handy. We are still in the US, bars will not let you have an alcoholic beverage without showing it.

Before the Orpheus and Proteus parades that night, we visited the Mardi Gras Spot shop to get masks, wigs and other accessories for our costumes. It is a big warehouse full of dressing up items. I found a pink wig and a feather boa. For me that will do!

Best parades in town during Mardi Gras in New Orleans!

The day after we woke up at 4 am to see the Bones and skulls parade, a secret parade departing from the Back Street museum.

Bones and skulls

It is apparently a really good museum. It holds the world’s biggest collection of New Orleans’ African American masking and processional traditions. We did not have time but if you can, check it out! This parade gave a more authentic experience to Mardi Gras. We waited in the cold. Suddenly skeletons showed up in the dark. A bit scary and impressive. During the parade, we knocked on neighbours’ doors to “wake them up” literally and spiritually… Everyone was in good spirit. The parade ended with a speech from the skeletons’ leader on how we should enjoy life and love each other. Pretty inspiring!

Zulu dancing at the Zulu parade in New Orleans

Then, we saw the Zulus’ parade, the best one of all for the costumes, goodies and marching bands. It was also close to our B&B. We stood beside a family: mum, dad and their two kids. The daddy was (really) tall and had two cute kids, he alternatively put on his shoulder. From this, I understand secret no 2: being tall means longer arms. It is a competitive advantage to catch things faster! Secret 3: having cute kids also help to attract nice toys…Under those terrible competitive conditions, it had been difficult to get stuff but not impossible. I got a few teddies (hurray!), a plastic rose, toys…The family got two full bin bags… Life is unfair… Some people were fighting over decorated coconut shells. We did not understand why. We learnt later on that they were THE things to get from the Zulus’ parade. Ah well!!

Our last plan was to see the Indians, another secretive krewe. We did not find them. Beyond their impressive costumes, I was attracted by the stories behind the krewe. Their parade dates, times and routes are never published in advance, although they tend to gather in the same areas every year. The Indian krewe are composed by African American who named themselves after native Indians as a tribute. Indeed, local Indians used to accept slaves into their society when they escaped, back in the slavery days. They have never forgotten this support.

The end of the NOLA visit, part I

Oysters in Oceana Grill, New Orleans, Louisiana

We ended the day with dinner in Oceana Grill in the heart of the French Quarter for some traditional cajun food. There I tried Louisiana’s cooked oysters. I did not really like them. They were too big, too meaty and tasteless. The restaurant was popular and crowdy though. The service was good. We tried their gumbo. It was ok!

Before I end this post, I would like to mention that during Mardi Gras, you can try NOLA’s version of the King cake. The one I tried was a kind of brioche covered with icing with the Mardi Gras’ colours: purple, green and gold. The NOLA King cake like all of the other King cakes has a bean (usually a plastic baby Jesus) inside. It is not my thing but I had to try since it is a typical snack during Mardi Gras. Try too! You might have a different experience, who knows! That was the end of my Nola trip, part I.

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ADDRESSES ON THIS POST

Marquette Hostel

2249 Carondelet St, New Orleans, LA 70130, EE. UU – Tel: +1 504-523-3014

Trolley Stop café

1923 Saint Charles Ave, New Orleans, LA 70130-5316

Mardi Gras Spot

2812 Toulouse St, New Orleans, LA 70119

Website

Back Street Museum

1116 Henriette Delille Street in Treme, New Orleans

Admission: 10 USD

Website

Oceana Grill

739 Conti St, Nueva Orleans, LA 70130-2220

For general information about Mardi Gras parades, click here.