We’d been looking forward to visiting New Orleans for a while – we’d both heard about the culture, the food, the music and we were excited! We arrived around lunch time and had time to kill before checking into our next Airbnb, so we decided to go to Storyland in City Park. City Park in New Orleans is enormous – bigger than Central Park in NYC. It has a couple of golf courses, two stadiums, lakes, a forest, a community produce garden, an amusement park and Storyland. Unfortunately the amusement park was closed, but Storyland was great. It’s an outdoor area with giant sculptures of characters and scenes from children’s book that you can walk around, climb on and interact with – there was Alice in Wonderland, the Three Little Pigs, Snow White and lots more.
When it was time to check in we hopped back in the car and made our way to the Airbnb, only to arrive to find the front door open….Hmmm….Turns out the owner was inside with a plumber doing some repairs so we had no running water. Not a great start… So we dropped off our bags and went to a playground across the road. Still no running water when we got back to the house so we decided to have dinner out. We got back an hour or so later and thankfully had running water. Unfortunately we also had a leaking toilet….Fortunately it wasn’t a major leak and was still usable, but the plumber was due to come back the following day to fix said leak.
The next morning we went to Audobon Zoo. It was the first zoo of our trip since crossing the border into America and it did not disappoint. As we were there fairly early in the morning a lot of the animals were active and we could see them moving around their generally spacious enclosures. We got good views of the lions, giraffes, rhino, zebras and gorillas. My favourite were the flamingos who actually make a sound like a goose!
That afternoon we went on a swamp tour. I have to admit I was not initially keen on this as when I think of a swamp I think of dirty, stagnant, smelly water. But I was proven completely wrong and it was absolutely beautiful. It reminded me of the Yellow River Cruise in Kakadu, NT that we did a couple of years ago. We cruised through the bayou in Jean Lafitte National Park and saw alligators, egrets, deer, a racoon and little river shacks. The tour guide was very entertaining and had a wealth of knowledge about the local area, information about the wildlife, and even had a 3 year old alligator stashed away that he brought out at the end of the tour for us to hold. Moose was very excited! It was a wonderful tour that I would highly recommend. After the swamp tour we headed down town to have a look around and had a great time wandering through the narrow streets, seeing street performers in Jackson Square and hearing jazz music from every pub and bar that we passed. It had a very European feel (not surprising given its French and Spanish past) and was also quite touristy. I had been advised to try a beignet, which is a fried dough/pastry treat that is doused in powdered sugar and is a New Orleans specialty – it exceeded all expectations and was totally delicious! I vowed to have one every day until we left. We wandered around some more and then had dinner at Gumbo Shoppe – gumbo is another New Orleans specialty and is a type of stew, also delicious! After that we headed home….. to a still leaking toilet…
Day three and we decided that cruises were our thing so we went on the Creole Queen Paddleboat cruise along the Mississippi River. But not before scoring another beignet. This was a historical cruise with another very entertaining local providing commentary and an account of NOLA’s French, then Spanish, then French, then American history. The cruise took us to the Chalmette Battlefield where we disembarked and learnt about the Battle of New Orleans, before hopping back on the boat to head back downtown. The return journey was quite incredible as we heard a detailed account of Hurricane Katrina, its devastation upon the city and its people, the strategic and bureaucratic difficulties in securing aid and then the recovery and revitalisation of the city.
We had lunch at a restaurant with a live jazz band which the kids thought was great and had some catfish (you guessed it – a New Orleans specialty), then did some more wandering down town through the French Market, Frenchmen Street (which has some funky bars and jazz clubs) and Bourbon Street (which is more debaucherous and touristy). We headed back home for dinner and were greatly relieved to have a properly functioning toilet.
Our final full day in New Orleans was wet and stormy so we went to the Butterfly Garden and Insectarium. Although I’m not a huge fan of creepy crawly things it was actually very interesting to see and learn about a lot of different bugs and Moose really got into it. My favourite part was the butterfly garden where there are beautiful butterflies of all different colours and sizes flying around you as you walk through. One landed on Moose which he didn’t really like. One landed on Ollie and was lucky to escape with its life! At the end we went to the museum cafe and could try some edible insects – Moose didn’t bat an eyelid as he downed a deep fried cricket and then a choc chip cricket cookie. All he could say was “I’m still hungry!”
My fantastic idea for the afternoon was to go to a particular bar called Pat O’Brien’s that I had heard was famous for its dueling pianos. I had imagined it being really entertaining and thought we would all have a blast. Turns out dragging the entire family through the rain to the courtyard of a bar that is almost washed out and that doesn’t allow anyone under the age of 21 anyway just results in tired, wet children and no-one has fun. So as we sat undercover on the patio of the bar instead, and Ollie slept in his pram and Moose slept on my lap, Seb and I tried to salvage the afternoon by having a cocktail and sharing a huge piece of chocolate cake. It kind of worked until we then had to walk through the rain again to get back to the car to get home. All in all the afternoon was a write-off but I think they’ve all forgiven me now!
The following morning was still a bit wet and dreary, but luckily, we were off to Florida and its white sandy beaches – but not before stopping for a final beignet on the way out of New Orleans!