holidays

We bought a ticket for a bus tour of the historic district. The buses are done out like old streetcars, and you can get on and off at any point along the route. We got off at the Cathedral, and walked over to Monterey Square. We saw the Mercer House, owned originally [...]

We caught the early flight from New Orleans to Savannah via Washington, arriving in Savannah around 2pm. We’re staying in the Avia, which is friendly and swanky, and located near the river in Old Savannah. We strolled around looking at the old squares, of which there are 20 or so – large houses [...]

We packed up and were sad to leave this morning.

We drove down to New Iberia, and just beyond to Avery Island, where they make Tabasco Sauce. The island is a salt dome – salt lies as far underground there as Everest rises above ground, they say. There is a park you can drive [...]

We drove back to Lake Martin for 10am for Bryan Champagne’s (pronounced ’sham-pan-ya’) swamp tour. Bryan was standing by his boat when we arrived, talking to a 50-year old black fisherman called George. Bryan and George were discussing what sort of boat George should get with a sum of money he’d inherited from [...]

In the morning we phoned to book a swamp tour for tomorrow, 10am.
We drove for 15 minutes south of Breaux Bridge to the Lake Martin nature reserve. Lake Martin is a cypress-tupelo swamp with a wading bird rookery. It’s an important site for migrating birds. We stopped in the small car park [...]

A hot breakfast was delivered to our cottage door at 8:30.
We drove to the Savoy Music Centre, between Lawtell and Eunice. The drive took us through the Cajun prairie – a lush green landscape of sugar cane, corn, rice paddies and crawfish ponds. The Savoy Music Centre is where Marc Savoy, leading accordion [...]

We picked up the rental car at the airport, and drove to the Laura Plantation at Vacherie. We had lunch in a Cajun cafe down the road – shrimp and crawfish stew – and then did a guided tour of the plantation. The plantation has a Creole-style house and grounds with gardens and [...]

We took the ferry across the Mississippi to Algiers – a five-minute trip – to have a look at Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World. It was very hot in Algiers. We walked around a block, looking at the houses in this peaceful residential area, then walked down the levee to the warehouses where [...]

Took the St Charles streetcar down to the Garden District for a guided tour of Lafayette Cemtery number 1. Our guide was Adam, from the voluntary conservation group Save Our Cemeteries. Adam was a local, and spoke in typical New Orleans style: fast.

The tombs in the cemetery were in varying states of repair. [...]

Coffee and beignets for breakfast at the Cafe du Monde followed by a visit to the Jean Lafitte Centre on Decatur Street. Jean Lafitte was a pirate who helped Jackson defend New Orleans against the British in 1815. The Centre had interesting displays and audio and video recordings about [...]