Thanksgiving Week Trip: Day Five

New Orleans, Louisiana: Today is the final day of our New Orleans vacation.  It has been a whirlwind of a trip as we tried to experience as much of the city as we could in the time that we were in town.  But before we boarded our flight back to Florida this evening, we still had a day of exploration left. Despite the fact that we had planned to much stuff with not enough days to get it done, I was still determined to cross a couple more off the list.

The day began with us boarding the St Charles Streetcar Line after breakfast for a trip to the Garden District.  One of the things that I have heard through the trip was that we needed to visit a New Orleans cemetery.  So we decided to head over to the Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District and take a self guided walking tour.  Having seen tradition in-ground burial cemeteries my whole life, it was weird seeing them all buried above ground.  It was also creepy at some points because there were quite a few tombs that were in bad repair and you could see inside the tombs.

After touring the cemetary, we hopped on the City Sightseeing bus at stop 15 and continued the tour back to the French Quarter.  We made sure to stop at Cafe Du Monde for a beignet before taking a guided tour of the French Quarter.

We met our tour guide at the French Market where he took us on a walking tour of the French Quarter and we heard stories about the Great New Orleans fire and how the Ursaline nuns saved the convent from the fire by prayer as well as stories of the original founders, pioneer and pirates of this bustling port city.  The tour was very fast paced, informative and gave us a good look at the history of the French Quarter.  To me, it was amazing to see how much history was contained in just a few city blocks.

At the conclusion of the walking tour, we headed back onto the City Sightseeing bus for a ride back around to Canal Street for our next tour.  We had reservations for a tour of the city which was going to take us outside the normal tour routes for a look at the entire city.

We boarded our private tour coach with handful of other people and we hit the streets of NOLA.  Unfortunately for this tour, I was unable to get good pictures because the windows on the bus were darkly tinted and made the camera struggle to focus.  Tour began in the French Quarter but from that point forward, we took to the side of the city that the other tours did not show.  We visited Frenchman Street, the Bourbon Street for the locals where all the live local music can be heard.  From there we headed through some residential neighborhoods while listening to history of the city and its architecture.

The tour had two stops where we got out to explore.  The first stop was St Louis 3 cemetery. Here our guide told us the history of the burials in New Orleans.   They bury above ground in crypts because of the water table in New Orleans as well as in conjunction with European customs.  It was also done as a way to conserve space, since there is limited space for burials and when the city was being settles the Catholics did not believe in cremation. So the solution was to build these family vaults that would bake the remains in a year.  One year and one day after someone passes, the vault would be opened, the coffin removed and the remains placed in a bag that would remain in the tomb.  This allowed them to bury entire families in one tomb. 

The second stop of the tour took us to City Park.  This 150 year old park is a whopping 13,00 acres and is larger than New York City's Central Park.  It features football stadiums, baseballs/soccer fields, a children's amusement park, the city's art museum, tennis center, miniature golf course, miles of hiking/biking trails and much more.  Our tour stopped for lunch at the Port of Call and a brief exploration walk of the nearby area.

We then boarded the bus and continued our tour of the city. The next area we would see would be the massive Lake Pontchartrain.  Massive is a understatement when it comes to size of this lake.  To put it into perspective the lake is 630 square miles in size, the county I live in (Sarasota County, Florida) is only 556 square miles in land.  This would also be where we would begin the Hurricane Katrina portion of the tour.  The tour showed us the three block section of levee wall that would fail causing the lake to flood the city.  While the city still recovers from this horrific disaster, it is haunting to see all vacant lots of the families who would not return to this great city.

From there we went through the university section of town, passing through Xavier University, Tulane University and Loyola University. We then entered into the Garden District for the celebrity homes portion of the tour.  We passed by the homes of Drew Brees, Archie Manning, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Ann Rice and more.   The tour then took us through the Irish channel portion of the city before returning us back to Canal Street where we started.

The time really got away from us on that tour and when we got back into the heart of the city, the town had really come to life.  The Superdome was hosting the Bayou Classic on Saturday night between Grambling and Southern and the fans for both of these teams have taken to the streets.  The atmosphere of the city was electric in advance of this big rivalry game.  I really wish we had extra time to experience this game and activities surrounding the game but we had an flight home to catch.  The flight home was very smooth, we ended up being on the final flight out of New Orleans for the day and the second to last flight into Tampa for the night.

Our trip to New Orleans was a great adventure.  We only scratched the surface of what this city has to offer between the attractions, food and culture.  In the week we were in town, we logged over 35 miles on foot, just a few miles shy of being able to walk the length of  Lake Pontchartrain which is 40 miles long.  The fun of exploring the city and experiences it has to offer is over and the real work begins as I processes the ton of photos taken during the trip.  Be sure to check back in the coming day/weeks as I will have new photos and stories from the trip.