New Orleans is a city unlike any other we’ve been to, with a culture all its own. Since you could argue that this culture is built around alcohol and music, then for our purposes the music was in focus.
We took a walking tour of the French Quarter and enjoyed beautiful architecture and waterfront views. We walked through an outdoor market and went to the Jazz National Historic Park (and stamped our national park passports, of course!)
Beautiful characteristic wrought iron features and lots of flowering plants on porches and balconies.
Because it’s famous, not because it was really our scene.
It was mostly deserted during the day anyway.
Miraculously she did not fall in the fountain.
But the temptation to touch the water was just irresistible.
Still plenty of riverboats to be seen. Makes me think of Mark Twain.
But New Orleans is above all a musical city. We went to a free concert that was indoors, complete with a stage and seats for the audience.
Don’t ask me who this was… I’m not sure we even knew at the time.
He told stories and sang original songs.
Attentive audience
Captive audience (literally)
And we found less formal performances, like this one on a street corner where we found some curb seating.
The band name: The Drunken Catfish Ramblers, written on a piece of cardboard.
It doesn’t get much more New Orleans than that!
Not just any curb seating… under construction curb seating.
After all the walking it was just nice to sit down! And yes, my daughter is barefoot. In the middle of a city. What’s your point?
And a slightly different style down by the waterfront where we stood up to enjoy the performance (well most of us, anyway).
During our visit to New Orleans we stayed 2 nights at the West New Orleans KOA campground.
Campground Review: West New Orleans KOA
Price: $78 for 2 nights
Location: Convenient to the most popular New Orleans tourist areas, but far enough away to be dark and quiet at night.
Facilities: perfectly adequate but nothing special
Site-description: grass/gravel, well shaded with plenty of trees. Sites are a little close together.
Neighborhood: A good variety of guests, from families to retired couples, camping with tents, pop-ups and larger RVs.
Website: http://koa.com/campgrounds/new-orleans/
Comments: Shuttles are offered to and from the French Quarter, and public transportation is also an option. We chose to drive ourselves, mostly because of complications with car seats and for the sake of flexibility, so we can’t comment on this service. But as in most cities, parking downtown can be expensive and hard to find, so it might be a great option.
