On Friday, June 4, we arrived in the Big Easy, NoLa, N'awlins or New Orleans. The weather wasn't optimal, or at least that's what we thought at first but it turned out that stormy weather is a blessing when you visit NoLa in the summer months. The clouds and scattered storms keep the city cooler (we still had temperatures of more than 30° C though).
We started with a stroll through the French Quarter. We had high expectations and we weren't disappointed. The French Quarter is beautiful... the Creole houses with their iron balconies filled with plants and flowers are amazing and on almost every corner, there is a street artist playing jazz songs.
New Orleans is notorious for its nightlife, so we also had a little taste of the city by night. The first day, we went for some original Creole food with a modern twist at Lüke restaurant, followed by some bar hopping together with our Icelandic friends who also happened to be in NoLa. Bourbon Street was of course the first stop on our program... The first 10 minutes, we couldn't really grasp what was going on: loud live jazz/rock music, proppers trying to lure you into their bar, cocktails starting at $3, red burned tourists with beer and liquor stumbling from one bar to the other, women flashing their boobs for some plastic bead necklaces (mostly older women who had been the victim of gravity for many years), "adult" bars, ... So we decided to leave this part of the town. In stead, we got tickets for a performance at Preservation Hall, an old club at which jazz artists have been jamming since 1961.
The next day, we left the French Quarter and strolled through the Garden District, where the Americans settled after the Louisiana purchase. These houses are completely different then the French Quarter: very elaborate on the outside, majestic almost, surrounded by huge tropic trees. Nowadays, a lot of famous people occupy this neigborhood...
In the afternoon, we went on a boat ride with the Creole Queen: jazz music on the Mississippi river - just perfect!
The second night, we had traditional Creole food at Felix's Oyster Bar. We even tried out some alligator (tasted like a combination of chicken and eal). We revisited Bourbon Street, giving it another chance but the second time, it seemed even more decadent. We escaped to a jazz bar and finished with a hurricane cocktail at Pat O'Briens.
On our final day in the Big Easy, we really took it easy and just wandered around in the French quarter, discovering new things which we didn't noticed the first day. We also stopped for some delicious beignets at Café Du Monde and started to prepare mentally for our big hike in the Louisiana swamps.
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