I’d read so much about New Orleans over the years, a city popular for the Mardi Gras, Louis Armstrong, Voodoo, vampires, and jazz music, it had been on my wish list for a long, long time. When I met the man I was to marry and found out he’d been to New Orleans twice, I knew that’s the first place I wanted him to take me to, after we got married.

M and I got married in Bali in June, and just a week later, he had to go back to the US where he worked, while I was still in Malaysia where I worked at the time. Due to the usual chaos around wedding prep and our unusual circumstances, we had not planned a honeymoon. About a week after M went back, I realised I had a series of holidays coming up thanks to the festive season in Malaysia and I could actually get a whole week off. Immediately, I called M and said – Let’s go to New Orleans for our honeymoon!

We spent a wonderful week in this unique city. Steeped in history, culture, war, intrigue, supernatural and much more, we did a walking tour, a bike tour, a boat tour and a horse carriage tour! And there was still more to do…

New Orleans is a super bike friendly city with bike lanes everywhere and a flat terrain. Grant, our guide, though not a native New Orleanian has lived here long enough and knew plenty about the history of the city.

The 3 hours flew by as he took us through the riverfront of the mighty Mississippi River, the historic Tremme neighborhood established by the first free people of colour, the unique above-the-ground cemetery at St.Louis No.3, the Esplanade of colourful Creole Millionaires’ mansions, the beautiful city park, the oldest African-American Catholic Church in the US and the cradle of jazz at the Congo Square in the Louis Armstrong Park.

Despite the blazing heat, we had an incredible experience and loved every minute of discovering this historic city.

The Colours of New Orleans

The colourful horse carriages lining up Decateur Street made a great picture!

Lake in City Park, where we stopped by on our bike tour.

The historic Tremme neighbourhood in NOLA where most ‘creoles of colour’ settled down after attaining their freedom. This house is definitely leaning towards the left, as are many other houses in the area caused by the alluvial soil in the Mississippi region.

The Crescent City Connection above the mighty Mississippi.

Juggler at the Washington Square Park

Esplanade Ave., also known as the Creole Millionaire’s Row, is lined with the most beautiful houses and mansions in New Orleans. If you look carefully, the green house is a bit wonky leaning towards the left.

The City Park is one of the oldest urban parks in the US and an absoutely magical place with its giant oaks covered with spanish moss and this red toy train running through it!

Washington Square park at the end of the Frenchman street had a lot of crazy characters!

A beautiful flowering tree with the Cabildo of St.Louis Cathedral in the background, at the Place ‘D’Arms park in Jackson Square.

St.Augustine’s is the oldest african-american church parish in the US, located in the Treme neighbourhood. This shrine known as the ‘tomb of the unknown slave’ consisting of grave crosses, chains and shackles serves to honour the memory of the nameless, faceless, turfless Africans who met an untimely death in Faubourg Treme.

St.Louis Cathedral at sunset

Faubourg Marigny -The historic New Orleans neighborhood laid out by the eccentric Bernard de Marigny in the early 19th century. This neighborhood retains much of de Marigny’s eccentric nature and is a hot bed for art, music, and culture.

The French Quarter is characterised by a vivid splash of colours, charming French balconies and bright flowers peeking out of window boxes and doorways. It’s not uncommon to share road space with horse carriages thanks to tourists taking tours of the Quarter. That and voodoo shops!

There’s so much more to the Creole history of New Orleans than jazz, slaves and bordellos!

I love the colourful houses in the Quarter built in the Spanish style. The great New Orleans fire in 1788 and a second one in 1794 destroyed almost every building in the French Quarter. NOLA was then under the Spanish rule and all the rebuilding was done in Spanish style architecture.

‘Touchdown Jesus’, that’s what our horse carriage driver called the statue of Jesus at the back of the St.Louis Cathedral, reminiscent of Jesus scoring a touchdown at the Saints game!

Lady Hawk, the psychic at Jackson Square read our tarot cards and assured us that all was good with our future.

Art and music, the soul of New Orleans.

I had to get a picture of this romantic couple dancing at the musical square park. This was one of the first things we saw as we entered Royal street.

Mounted police in Bourbon Street. More a tourist attraction than law enforcement.

How she does this in the melting, sweaty weather every single day, i have no idea! Reminded me of the painted guy in Times Square, New York.

We didn’t eat here, but this is another one of NO’s historic haunted landmarks.

Buildings in the French Quarter

Horse carriages are a common sight in the French Quarter, New Orleans. Takes one back in time, when that was the only mode of transportation. It’s quite amusing these still coexist harmoniously with present day automobiles.

Ceiling of the St.Louis Cathedral

Cities of the dead. St.Louis Cemetery No.3

St.Louis Cathedral at sunset

Bourbon street. Check. As eagerly as I looked fwd to visiting the famed Bourbon St in #NewOrleans, it was a tad bit of a let down filled with sweaty tourists jostling for space. In my mind’s eye, every time I read about this place at the heart of the French Quarter I expected it to be much more … French, I guess and more exotic. Bars, strip clubs and drunks. That sums up up Bourbon Street. But, it’s an experience nevertheless.

Gotta love how the New Orleanians drink their Bloody Marys. It’s a salad with a kick! Y’day got one with an okra, today with beans and olives. M calls it the rasam cocktail

This historic restaurant serves an amazing Sunday Jazz brunch, which we sadly missed since we only had one Sunday in NO.

The Birthplace of Jazz

In Louisiana’s French and Spanish colonial era of the 18th century, slaves were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work. They were allowed to gather in the “Place des Nègres” (Place of the Negroes) or informally “Place Congo” at the back of town, where the slaves would set up a market, play African drums, sing and dance together. It is from these gatherings, jazz music evolved.

Music is an inherent part of the city and everywhere you look, someone is singing or playing something. People are friendly and quirky, ghosts and vampires co-exist harmoniously with tourists, colours pop out of most unexpected places, and everyone’s having a good ol’ time!

Street performers at Jackson Square

Loved the lonely sax player’s mellow tunes.

We saw these guys almost every day in different parts of the Quarter!

Another brilliant jazz band at another charming little cafe.

The waiter at the Morning Call, a charming old cafe at the City Park makes beautiful music

It’s rainin’ Jazz!

all that jazz!

Street performers at the pier next to the Mississippi river.

Standing in line to board the steamboat and we hear jazz music being played on an organ. A closer look shows us this woman on the upper deck of the boat, playing an organ connected to the steam pipes! Each note she plays is actually produced by these steam pipes

Just at the edge of the French Quarter, at what was once the back of town lies the Louis Armstrong park, dedicated to the most famous son of the city.  Sadly, Armstrong never came back to the city once he became famous because the deep divide between the colours was still very predominant in the Deep South. Despite being one of the most famous musicians in the world at the time, he would have still had to take the back entrance to various buildings and experience being discriminated against.

Ghosts, Voodoo and Vampires

New Orleans is known to be the home of the vampires, the occult, voodoo and haunted houses. A visit is never complete without a tour that covers the paranormal. M & I took a 2-hour walking tour of the haunted mansions of the French Quarter aptly called the Ghost Tour.

Our guide Terry, was a middle school history teacher by day and a tour guide by night, in addition to being a brilliant storyteller. If I had a history teacher like her in high school, my grades would have been way higher!

Terry took us on the most fascinating journey through the Quarter that covered landmark spots including a former bordello where a prostitute hung herself, an Ursuline convent that hosted 12 ‘casket girls’ who were believed to have smuggled the first vampires into the US from France, a doomed mansion once owned by a cruel, wealthy socialite who tortured her slaves in the attic, and the streets that were once piled high with bodies during the Yellow Fever epidemic in late 1800s that killed 10,000 people during the course of one summer.

It also included a more recent story from 2006 about a couple who came together during Katrina and how badly things ended when the man jumped off the roof of a hotel bar after killing the woman and cooking her body parts! Many tourists have reported seeing him jumping off the roof many times over the years.

We also visited the Voodoo museum since New Orleans is known to be a major hub for this religion. (Yes, it’s a religion as we were informed tersely by the ‘practitioner’ behind the reception desk). Turned out ‘museum’ is the ambitious term for an old 3 room house with pictures of high priestesses of Voodoo, dolls, kneeling altars, descriptive information boards and the stereo playing some kind of African drums mood music to add to the authenticity.

At the museum, I learnt more about Marie Laveau, a name I had already heard a few times in New Orleans.

Marie Laveau was the most famous female resident of New Orleans at one time. She was a High Priestess of Voodoo, a free woman of colour, faith healer and woman extraordinaire. I was fascinated by her story and bought a book on her life that attempts to bust the myths and cut through the noise to the real woman. Her house of voodoo sells everything from altars, to dolls, to herbs and potions one needs to cast a hex!

How can I not mention the Mardi Gras?

The main attraction of New Orleans is the annual Mardi Gras. It’s the most popular time to visit New Orleans. It usually takes place in February, but Parades start in January and festivities go on for a month. I hear the streets are teeming with people at all times, hotels are overbooked and overpriced, alcohol flows freely in Bourbon street (and beyond) and everyone is partying irrespective of the time of day. While that may have sounded like a lot of fun in my 20s, I am not sure I want to be in the middle of that anymore! If you want to visit New Orleans during Carnival season, this is a helpful website.

Traveler Tip – While staying at the French Quarter may seem like the thing to do to get an authentic experience, I strongly recommend avoiding that. Hotels in the Quarter are overpriced simply because of their location and it’s noisy at night. There are plenty of good, affordable (as well as luxury hotels) just off the French Quarter, within walking distance to the heart of the Quarter. We stayed in a place that was across the street from where the border of the Quarter began. Saves you a ton of money, and you get a good night’s sleep.