Christmas in New Orleans, Louisiana

 Visited December 16 - 26, 2020

 

By Janell

Note:  This is an "after the fact" post as we work our way backwards to catch you up on our previous destinations.

 

"I'm on my way to New Orleans this morning ... " 🎜

Amazingly, on our drive towards New Orleans, on the morning of December 19, our music library randomly chose to play "Ramblin' Man”, by the Allman Brothers! Coincidence?

Driving over the Atchafalaya Basin, LA -- so weird to see trees in the middle of a body of water

Our first glimpse of New Orleans; see the Superdome on the right?

 

We spent three nights at the French Quarter RV Resort, right on the edge of New Orleans' French Quarter. It was an ideal location except for its proximity to I-10: super close! There was constant freeway noise and near-constant (it seemed anyway) sirens! 

The French Quarter is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans.

The French Quarter RV Resort; notice the quaint lamp post that each site has

 

St Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square

Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square

Also Jackson Square

 

Joan of Arc

Why is there a statue of Joan of Arc in New Orleans' French Quarter?

France erected the statue in 1972 as a gift to New Orleans, whose namesake, Orléans, was one of the towns Joan of Arc (1412-1431) defended from the English during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453).

 

Beignets and coffee au lait at Café du Mondé are a must when in New Orleans!

Near the waterfront in the French Quarter

In the French Quarter

Bourbon Street

We bought a souvenir!

 

Matt and Garrett were supposed to fly into New Orleans and join us in an Airbnb for the week of Christmas. Unfortunately, once again Covid-19 messed up everyone's plans. Due to increased outbreaks, hospitalizations and restrictions, flying them to New Orleans was a no-go. We were so sad and bummed about not seeing the boys!

It would be just the two of us in the Airbnb for Christmas: a little bungalow on N Villere Street, right across the street from Louis Armstrong Park in the Tremé district.

By the way, if you haven't seen the show "Tremé", which takes place in New Orleans (right after Hurricane Katrina), we recommend it. It's by the same director as "The Wire".

If you look closely, you can see Marty peeking through the door of our bungalow

 

Louis Armstrong Park

 

The Bywater neighborhood has several of these cute little homes

  

New Orleans, as seen from Crescent Park in the Bywater neighborhood

Oddly enough, even though it looks as if the city and Crescent Park are on opposite sides of the Mississippi River, they're on the same side. The river makes a turn in the shape of a crescent right at New Orleans; thus one of New Orleans' nicknames is "Crescent City".

 

 

We visited the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden, both located in City Park. 

This cloud-like exhibit in NOMA is called "Mending the Sky". It has thousands of actual needles hanging down! (and signs warning one to be careful!)

 

These next few pieces are in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden

I bet this guy's pretty good at Scrabble!

 

 

This exhibit looked so cool! Imagine the photos Marty would've taken if we could've gone in!

But alas, it was not allowed due to . . . Covid

A balcony in the French Quarter - New Orleanians really get into their decorations!

The architecture in New Orleans is so fun to look at! These beauties are on Esplanade Ave.

The National WWII Museum, in downtown New Orleans, is designated by Congress as the official WWII museum of the United States. After touring it, we could see why it is the "official" museum! It's a massive, multi-building museum with very comprehensive coverage of World War II. There was so much to see that we'll need to go back.

But why is such a monumental museum located in New Orleans? Well, we learned that there are two key reasons why this is so.

First of all, New Orleans played a critical role in World War II. Local shipbuilder Andrew Higgins, who had designed special vessels to navigate shallow Louisiana bayous, realized they would serve well to deliver soldiers and material onto shallow beaches. Think of the D-Day scene in “Saving Private Ryan”, where these boats landed on the beaches of Normandy. “Higgins Boats”, as they came to be known were built in local shipyards by a racially integrated workforce of men and women. The boats were so successful that General Dwight D. Eisenhower described Higgins as “the man who won the war for us.”

Secondly, the founder of the National World War II Museum was Stephen E. Ambrose: American historian and biographer, author of many bestselling including Band of Brothers and a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans. So there you have it!

They did a good job of keeping everyone Covid-safe, but in military fashion

A clever touch!

 

 

 

We rode the streetcar and had a lovely afternoon in New Orleans' Garden District on Christmas Eve.

The St. Charles line

Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District was closed due to ongoing repairs

Notice that the tombs are all above ground. The water table in New Orleans is very high. Dig a few feet down, and the grave becomes soggy, filling with water; causing the casket to float. The early settlers placed stones in and on top of coffins to weigh them down and keep them underground. Still, rainstorms brought the water table up and those airtight coffins would literally pop out of the ground! Imagine the fright that would create!

Even now, unpredictable flooding still occasionally lifts coffins out of the ground in areas above the water table, which are generally considered safe from flooding.

We finished watching "The Queen's Gambit" while we were in New Orleans. Loved it so much that we wanted to start playing chess again (I barely remembered how, so Marty had to re-teach me. It had been over 25 years!). Our AirBnb had a chess game in the cupboard, so we played a couple of times while we were there.

Our AirBnb owners were such nice guys! I was very pleasantly surprised that they had decorated the place for Christmas for us! And they had recently gotten champagne as gifts, but they don't drink, so they offered us a bottle. We drank it on Christmas Day while playing chess!

The bungalow owners loved this photo Marty took so much that they asked if they could put it in their AirBnb ad!

We had so much fun in NOLA, that we can't wait to come back!