Strolling through the old French Quarter

Back to Chapter Eight: New Orleans

Monday morning we headed down to the old French Quarter to find breakfast and to ride a paddlewheel boat on the Mississippi river.  We found the boat, which advertised that it was running seven days a week, but for some mysterious reason it was closed that day.  Much disappointed, we wandered off to fill our tummies and find out what else we could see of New Orleans in one afternoon.

After breakfast in a small cafe I could think much clearer and was able to appreciate our surroundings.

This is the St. Louis Cathedral and the Plaza d Armas.

Informative sign.

I was stuck with the beauty and number of old buildings with flowered terraces.

There's Old Man River and the old paddlewheel boat that we were supposed to tour on.  The Mississippi river looks a lot different than I imagined it when I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

A street performer. 
I had to look several times before I decided that she wasn't a statue; she stood so still and her dress was so stiffly formed.  I don't envy her job!

After rambling a while and soaking in the old city, we found a shop with postcards of the mansions in the area.  Since we couldn't go on the riverboat, we decided that touring more old houses was how we wanted to use our one afternoon in New Orleans.  So we got directions and headed out of town.

Our day in New Orleans ended with a view of the sunset over Lake Pontchartrain (which I had heard of from Vienna Teng's song on her newest album, but I didn't know it was real).  Joshua got some more walking practice before we went back to our hotel room to pack up for a very early departure the next morning.