We had the Readers' Digest version of seeing New Orleans today. We signed up for a tour and then arrived in the French Quarter with enough time to have a good walk around before we took the city tour.
We walked along quite a good length of Bourbon Street. From where we started, it was a residential area that moved in to the bar/drinking area that you associate with New Orleans partying.it is narrow and old and the sidewalks are very uneven (says me who kept tripping).
We also looked at the main square and walked through the French Market. The market is an orgy of tourist tempting. Want a wine cup from Pakistan? So much for New Orleans goods.
Once we got on the bus we drove around a lot of the city. We got off twice; once at a cemetery and once at a park. The cemeteries are interesting, above ground. They wait at least a year and a day and then workers scrape the remains into the base of the family vault. The vaults on the left are temporary vaults while the ones on the right are family tombs.
 |
Across the street there is a park with statutes of various things. Interesting modern art. There were oak trees too. Many old ones were lost around the city during Hurricane Katrina but some newer ones are still there.
We drove through the area with the big old houses. A lot of lovely homes.
Some of the trees along one main boulevard still had strings of beads from Mardi Gras hanging from the branches. They break and fall off in time to get more the following year.
There were a lot of homes being renovated both in the upscale neighbourhood and along Bourbon Street. There must be quite an industry here doing the renovations. I think the poorer neighbourhoods are still suffering from the effects of the hurricane though. The news had a story about weeds and garbage in one neighbourhood that had not been rehabilitated.
Tomorrow we stop in Houston for the night and then we are moving on to Brownsville to see our Saskatoon friends. Internet service may be sketchy for a few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment