New Orleans: Balconies, Graveyards, Pirates, Gators, Swamps, Nicolas Cage, & Boobs
We’d been hoping to explore San Antonio for the first half of the day, but the speeding ticket we got the previous night threw the whole schedule off. We ended up getting in really late, causing us to wake up really late, and had no choice but to head out toward New Orleans, which was still 9 hours away.
A warning to be heeded:
Just over the border, we saw this billboard, and for a second, I actually thought Iowa was bizarrely advertising tourism to Louisiana. Then I realized it was actually for an outlet mall in Iowa, Louisiana.
One of the few sections of Interstate I actually enjoy is I-10 along the south-east, when it travels through swamps on roads perched about twenty feet off the water.
We hit New Orleans at around midnight and checked-in to our hotel, Le Richelieu.
If you’re looking for a budget hotel in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, you can do no better than Le Richelieu, where we had a great room for just $99/night (most hotels start at the $150-$200 range). Only a few blocks from the famous Cafe Du Monde and Bourbon Street, Le Richelieu is just far enough off the beaten path to feel like you’re escaping the crowds of tourists when you go home at night.
The decor is a bit worn but charming, and certainly beats the endless bland chain hotel rooms we’d been staying in. I believe the manager actually lives in the hotel, and pays very close attention to the daily workings of the place.
There’s a nicely lit courtyard pool, which guests can enjoy at any hour of the day (thank God – it seems like every hotel in the country universally agreed to close their pools at 9pm, which really doesn’t work for roadtrippers).
AND BEST OF ALL, YOU GET FREE PARKING! FREE! If you’ve never been to New Orleans, every hotel charges an additional parking fee, usually at a cost of about $30/day.
After checking in, we decided to walk around the neighborhood.
Along with Venice and Sevilla, New Orleans’ French Quarter is one of favorite places in the world to walk around at night, after the tourists have mostly disappeared.
I love the muggy warm air, the sudden stillness where once was revelry, and above all, the sense of mystery that pervades every street and building.
On this particular night, we barely saw anyone as we walked around.
Even Bourbon Street was on the quiet side:
The next morning, we got breakfast at Cafe Du Monde, which has been in business since 1860 and is famous for their French-style beignets, essentially fried dough.
Er, OK, it’s certainly decent enough fried dough, but at the end of the day, I think it’s a little silly to wait for 45 minutes in line for fried dough, when you certainly wouldn’t do the same at, say, a carnival. That said, I appreciate the tradition, and you’ve gotta do it at least once.
We started the day with the free city-published walking tour pamphlet, only to quickly realize that in lieu of taking us on an interesting route, it was basically forcing us to stay on Royal Street and walk by all the shops. Not really recommended (but it is free!).
Below, the Corn Stalk Hotel and its famous 165-year old cast iron fence. The apocryphal story of its origins tells of a home owner who brought his bride to live here from Iowa. Hoping to allay her homesickness, he installed this fence of corn to remind her of home.
Of course, the truth is way more mundane: the homeowner was simply trying to one up his neighbors in decor, and purchased the fence from a catalog simply because it was the most expensive one they offered.
Strangely, the doorknob/lock is installed upside down, which local ghost tours will tell you is because of a Creole funeral rite in which you reverse your doorknobs following the death of a loved one. Can’t confirm any of this online, however.
There are two main types of iron work: wrought or cast. Wrought-iron is forged by hand, and can be identified by variations and randomness in the patterns. These imperfections often give it a more lively appearance than cast-iron, which is formed from a mold.
Many of the balconies are decorated with beautiful plants and gardens:
A corner building:
A cast-iron balcony painted white:
This one seems to have gone a bit overboard with the foliage…
Real? Fake? New? Old? It’s always hard to be sure when you come across ghost ads in highly-touristed sections of town:
Awesome neon sign on the Monteleone Hotel:
At the end of this street is Pirate Alley, though no one is exactly sure why it’s called that (prior to 1960, it was Orleans Alley).
We had our po boy and gumbo lunch at Johnny’s, a New Orleans institution since 1950. The line of tourists snaking out the door always raises my culinary suspicions, but as always, it was damn good.
Next up, we headed out to one of New Orleans’ above ground cemeteries, St Louis 1. While I don’t find New Orleans’ cemeteries as beautiful as, say, the southern cemeteries in Savanna, they’re certainly interesting to walk around.
Though you’ll often hear the bodies were placed above ground due to flooding concerns, the actual reason has more to do with French and Spanish traditions. The wall of the cemetery is itself an enormous tomb (left side below), with bodies stacked three high.
The most famous grave in St. Louis 1 is that of Marie Laveau, renowned voodoo priestess…or was she? Like pretty much every legend in New Orleans, no one seems to know for sure. In fact, there’s little evidence to suggest she even practiced magic…
However, that hasn’t stopped hordes of tourists from leaving gifts and notes for Laveau in exchange for wishes:
I think it’s the concrete paths that really take away from the beauty of the cemetery, though I can only imagine it’s a necessity.
Now here’s where things get really nutty: this tomb, the latest addition to the cemetery, was purchased and built within the last few months by Nicolas Cage, and will one day be his final resting place. Yes, that Nicolas Cage.
Meanwhile, this guy (in the hat) was offering to let people take pictures inside a “real tomb” (for an implied tip). I almost distinctly remember someone doing this the last time we were here, and decided not to pay a guy for prying into graves. Anyone know if he’s legit?
At around 3:30, we got back in the car and headed an hour outside of town for the inimitable Dr. Wagner’s Honey Island Swamp Tours, located down a dirt road off the highway.
Though there are tons of swamp tours in the area (many operating on the same swamp!), Dr. Wagner’s was the first, having opened in 1982. The online reviews were universally positive, so we decided to give it a try.
We joined our group of 14 in a covered open-air boat and began motoring into the swamp.
Our guide knew pretty much everything about the swamp, and though I’m sure he’s given this tour a zillion times, explained it all with enthusiasm and even a bit of reverence. Also, he spoke with an incredibly gravelly southern drawl, peppering his story with amusing sayings like “Time to turn on the Cajun air-conditioning” right before kicking the boat into high gear.
The swamp was absolutely beautiful.
Any fears we had that the alligators might not show were dismissed within minutes of leaving the dock, as an enormous gator swam stealthily up to the boat in search of hot dogs and marshmallows, which our guide tossed generously.
The gators LOVED the hot dogs…
…leaping waaay out of the water to get at them.
According to our guide, gators are actually shy creatures, and there had never been a recorded gator attack in the swamp. Still, when its staring up at you with its dead-black eyes, you definitely feel glad to be in the boat:
Our tour guide led us deeper into the swamp:
Much of the water was covered:
Here, you can see how high the swamp has risen in the past by the water line on the trees:
Houses like the one below were originally built for hunting and fishing:
Then, people realized they could make do without the hunting and fishing, and just come out to drink and party, which is what they’re now known for.
Most had to be restored after Katrina – this one is still waiting for some heavy repairs:
We saw at least eight alligators on our tour, including this baby (who didn’t care much for marshmallows).
I can’t recommend Dr. Wagner’s tours highly enough. Our guide was awesome, the swamp was gorgeous, and the alligators were very social. Be sure to call ahead, as tours regularly sell out.
We returned to New Orleans, ate dinner, and joined up with a late night ghost tour. Scouting NY tip: having a drink or two while you walk around makes the ghost tour experience infinitely more enjoyable.
Our tour guide was a chipper girl in her 20’s from Connecticut, who believed firmly in ghosts and told us at least someone was bound to have a paranormal experience on her tour (later on, a group of 12 year old girls in the group tittered wildly when one proclaimed to have felt a chill). Sadly, I didn’t see any ghosts…
…though I did see two women flashing from a balcony as we walked across Bourbon Street (which came off as somewhat pathetic considering Bourbon Street was half empty and no one was throwing beads or even paying attention – but you won’t hear me complaining!).
We stopped midway through the tour at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop for drinks. Lafitte’s is located in one of the oldest buildings in New Orleans, and is considered one of the oldest continually operating bars in the United States. Its also said to have once been owned by the pirate Jean Lafitte, though this is yet another New Orleans legend with zero documentation.
On the whole, the ghost stories were a bit underwhelming – that is, until we got to the LaLaurie mansion.
All of a sudden, the tone of the stories jumped from Edgar Allen Poe to Rob Zombie. According to legend, former resident Delphine LaLaurie tortured and killed nearly 100 black slaves behind these walls…but that was only the beginning.
When firemen broke in to put out a blaze in the kitchen, they found a scene out of a horror movie: slaves with sex organs surgically swapped, women nailed to the floor by their intestines, heads with brains stewed by sticks, buckets filled with genitalia, females splayed to resemble caterpillars, and on, and on, and on. Even the most bored group members perked up at this one.
Of course, this is all bullshit. The earliest the LaLaurie torture stories can be traced no further back than a 1998 New Orleans ghost tour guide written by a woman who gave tours herself. Though she claimed to have uncovered the story from old newspaper reports, not a single bit of evidence has ever confirmed this.
Ready for more Nicolas Cage wackiness? He bought the place in 2007 for $3.5M, allegedly without any knowledge of its history, and was surprised to find ghost tours taking photos every night.
These are supposedly Nicolas Cage’s Halloween decorations. The house is now for sale, following Cage’s bizarre buying spree that brought him to bankruptcy (he also purchased Anne Rice’s former house in the Garden District):
Before leaving the next day, we bought a fantastic $10 walking tour guide of the Garden District and did a self-guided tour.
Like the French Quarter, treasures await you at every turn through the Garden District, and photographs don’t do it justice.
When it comes to road-tripping, I recommend taking at least one or mini-vacations along the route in a single place to break up the driving, and two nights in New Orleans is ideal for this.
I realize that we explored the parts of the city that are almost strictly for tourists, and that a “real” New Orleans does exist outside the French Quarter and Garden District. Unfortunately, time was nipping at our ankles as always, and we had no choice but to head north…
After all, those fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches were calling!
-SCOUT
Scout, I love your adventures! Based on that fact that you’re going to be delving into Elvis I really hope you can make it out to Graceland Too. It is a self-made Elvis museum that is plastered with Elvis memorabilia, and is more a shrine to one man’s obsession than anything else. My friends and I checked it out on a Roadtrip earlier this year and it really has no comparison. Paul McCloud will give you an unforgettable tour, a fear of hoarders, and a story that you will be telling to disbelieving friends for years.
If it’s not already on your list, I highly recommend it.
Regarding Cafe du Monde, I prefer to avoid waiting for a table. Instead, I use the takeout window and carry my breakfast up over the flood wall and eat at a park bench looking out over the Mississippi.
Not sure if it was serendipity or planned, but I loved that you visited the city close to the 5th anniversary of Katrina. Quite fitting to show those pictures of a revived city. I loved those photos, makes me want to visit even more than I did before Katrina.
Having grown up in the Garden District, this was pretty cool and unexpected to see on here.
Definitely take what you hear on the walking tours with a grain of salt… I took one once for an architecture project in high school, and they mentioned the 100-year-old lace curtains in the windows of our house – my parents got them for like $20 at a department store when they moved there in the mid 80’s.
The old Anne Rice house that Nicholas Cage bought and sold wasn’t where she lived; her residence was about half a mile up the street. It’s a former chapel that she bought hoping to turn it into an office, but the city wouldn’t let her because of the zoning. After that it just sat there gathering dust until Mr. Cage came along.
Loved the tour of the city where my heart resides. I may live elsewhere but NOLA has had my heart for 39 years. Thanks for the pictures, I loved the virtual tour. I haven’t been able to visit in 20 years and may never be able to go “back home” again.
Ciao,
Ardee-ann
Nice tour !! And thanks for the all the information !
Regarding your swamp tour. Those alligators would have rather had an arm or a leg than hot dogs or marshmallows.
I live in SW Florida and an 18 year old boy lost his left hand to a big alligator recently. Foolishly swimming in the alligator’s canal.
It was great to see New Orleans in much better shape than last I saw it.
Enjoyed your writing. Live close to New Orleans and go as much as we can. Visitor center as you enter LA gets daily updates on good deals for places to stay. Our fav is Le Provincial. They pronounce in an unFrench way. And you would enjoy Snug Harbor, Palm Court, and Irvin Mayfield’s place at the Royal Sonesta. Too many good food places to list. Napoleon’s is steeped in N.O. ambience. Port O’Call – great hamburgers, lots of locals. Heavens, makes me want to move there.
Good stuff. For better beignets without the wait try Cafe Beignet on Royal next to the police station. There’s friendly cats in the courtyard and the beignets are made to order. Way better than Cafe du Monde.
Please please please, if you come though Knoxville on your journeys you MUST got to Worlds Fair Park and go up in the Sun Sphere!
The third house from the bottom of this entry(pinkish with green balconies) is Sandra Bullocks house.
Too bad you didn’t make over to Frenchman in the Marigny. THAT’s where the locals go for music. Just walk on down Decatur until you cross Esplanade.
We stopped in New Orleans ourselves (it was halfway between home in Texas and Orlando, which is a good way to explain how big Texas is).
I hope you get a chance to come to Texas sometime. If you’re gonna be in Memphis, check out the Yellow Fever memorial. It’s small and in a park and not many folks know about it or the history.
Sorry to be nitpicky, but I noticed this was wrong on the older post, too, and I’m the crazy grammar person… Savannah, GA should have an h on the end.
Thank you for writing about this. Something else that might interest you is this fundraising concert event for the victims of the oil spill in Venice, Louisiana called Venice for Venice. Check out the details here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDz6JM35Ijo. You may also watch the live streaming of the event here: http://greenopolis.com/live/veniceforvenice.
Took the honey island swamp tour last Sat. It was both entertaining and educational. It sounds like we may have had the same guide, Captain Charlie. Thanks for the tip.
Hi! Im heading to new orleans myself and since it’s my first time, i’m having a hard time choosing a hotel. Would you recommend le richelieu, in terms of location and most importantly cleanliness. I’ve been reading reviews online, mostly they’re good but there are quite a few extremely negative feedbacks. I’m planning to get the standard queen bed room… And choosing among hotel st. Louis, hotel st. Marie, and le richelieu. Any input will go a long way and will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!
I just stayed at Le Richelieu on Oct 5-8, 2015 based on all those “stellar” reviews which I now believe to be faux (as in fake). The hotel looks charming on the outside, the lobby is passably shabby chic but the rooms are dark, gloomy, depressing and have the same tile and kitchenettes that were there when the place was apartments back in the 50s or 60s. No microwave, no coffeemaker, stove is blocked over and no longer works, just an old, 1960s or 70s refrigerator, dark burgundy carpet that feels lumpy, lumpy and wavy floors in the hallways, the thick dark curtains do not let in any light and look as though they have never been washed, the bedspreads also look as though they have never been washed. I slept in my clothes the first night and hated every second I had to stay in that depressing room. The mattress was hard and wavy, probably the same one that they opened with in 1969. A list of famous people who stayed there in the bar but the pics look 30 years old or older. I guarantee those people would not stay there now. You don’t want anything to touch your skin and the shower is very weak water pressure and you are ankle deep in water before you finish washing your hair. Really gross. The “old” décor is not charming, its like years of grime that has been cleaned on the surface and that’s how it feels. The bar tender was not friendly and did not put enough ice in my drink but he was so foreboding and unfriendly I didn’t ask for more ice. Other than the parking lot and the good location, this was a $49 per night dive motel dressed up on the outside to look like a “boutique hotel”. Basically lipstick on a pig. And I found out AFTER I left my purse in the room to go on an airboat tour that the keys work on ALL the rooms, not just the room you are staying in! They really need to renovate this place and get rid of all those now defunct Brady Bunch kitchenettes, the dark, gloomy burgundy carpet, the horrible thick 1960s draperies and nasty bedspreads, replace the dated tiles, get new mattresses and bed linens, new furniture, get rid of the 1980s wall paper border, etc. Basically, they need to completely gut this hotel back to the frame and remodel from scratch. Then it might be worth $160 per night. I stayed at the Melrose Mansion on Esplanade the first time I visited NOLA and it was awesome, but that was back in the 90s. It was around $200 per night then and worth it but like everything there, the prices have gone through the roof, greed runs the show and you do NOT get what you pay for anymore. Not even close. The whole of New Orleans French Quarter has become a stinky, (blood, urine,vomit and garbage) smelling tourist trap. It no longer has that quaint, off the beaten path, artsy cool feel it had back in the 90s. Too many people, too many con arists and hustlers, too many overpriced souvenier shops selling coffee mugs for $25 a piece or a thin cheap pair of novelty socks for $20 that tear when you take the price tag off. It has basically been ruined by tourists and greedy hustlers just like Orange Beach and the Flora Bama in Alabama. That used to be the coolest off the beaten path place to go that only the locals and a few select out of towners knew about, now its lines of people backed up for miles and you can’t even get in the Flora Bama anymore. Same thing with NOLA/Bourbon Street, etc. Ruined by tourists and greed. I would not recommend Le Richelieu and I will not be back to NOLA. The buildings are charming on the outside and it’s very interesting for a day or two at most but it gets old REAL fast. The mule and buggy rides are $180 for up to 4 people for one hour. It was just me, my husband and daughter and I could NOT see paying nearly $200 for what should have been $20 per person for an hour. And that’s how everything is down their. Watch out for hustlers calling you “pretty lady” and wanting to put mardi gras beads on your head and then they ask for $2 for some .5 cent plastic beads. And all kinds of other hustlers. You have to wash your feet when you get back to the room because you feel so dirty. The rooms at Le Richelieu are not inviting they make you homesick as soon as you walk in. I walked until my legs nearly fell off just to avoid going back to the room and I could not sleep on that bed it was hard as a rock. The bathroom was too far away from the bedroom also and it was too small. I’ve stayed at one other dump in Dauphin Island that looked old, was musty and dirty and you just knew there were roaches hiding everywhere. I couldn’t wait until that vacation was over and I felt the same way at the Le Richelieu, only it was priced like a 4 or 5 star hotel, not a dive. I feel like I got taken from the whole experience. The 5 star and 4 star reviews must be fake or from people who live in a tent somewhere and have no idea what a nice hotel is supposed to be like. You don’t even have coffee to wake up to unless you go downstairs and get it and they only have tiny little cups to put it in. No microwave to heat up the over priced leftovers from the over priced restaurants. Just too much of a tourist trap nowadays. I feel sorry for all the people who didn’t get to experience NOLA back in the 70s-90s. Times have changed and not for the better. All these sweet sounding little reviews are exaggerated “false positivism” in my opinion. I’m not being negative, just realistic. The Honey Island swamp tour looks like the only thing worth the money. I went on the tour in Lafitte and it’s also touristy, overpriced and not as authentic looking “swamp” territory as Honey Island looks in these pictures. I really wish I had taken this tour instead. The Lafitte tours look basically like the Tennessee River up here in North Alabama with some Spanish moss hanging on the trees and a few alligators. Not worth the $75 per head plus tips. Total tourist trap.
Also, BEWARE OF THE CEMETARY TOURS! Those guides will charge you a minimum of $20 per head and you will be HELD HOSTAGE for over TWO HOURS! The first hour will be going through the French Quarter, even though you paid for a CEMETARY TOUR. Then after they keep you standing in the hot sun for over 2 hours on what should take about 30 minutes, they will just blatantly ask you for more money! (tips). Greed, greed greed. Disgusting.
you have to check out frenchman street for the music, and the former gay bathhouse the country club
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After seeing these pictures, I’m sold – whenever I get around to roadtripping i NEED to stop in New Orleans. The gator pictures, the graves – right up my alley! Thanks again for sharing!