The second day started off a little slow. We bought a Visipass for the street car and had a heck of a time catching one. If you are not sitting at the yellow line waiting when they come by, forget about catching it! It rolls right on by. We missed three on our way down to Cafe Du Monde, and just decided to keep walking down there. Once we finally got down there, the line was SOOOOOO long, and the day was starting to drag on already, so we decided to just go back up to the Riverwalk area and get some beignets and cafe au lait at the Riverwalk Cafe Du Monde. After waiting 40 minutes for the street car, we took it up to Canal Street to get our fix of Beignets. They were very good, and we sat outside watching the boats go by as we peacefully sipped our cafe au lait.
The original plan for today was to eat at Cafe Du monde in the morning, then head up to La Boulangerie, for some Olive Bread on our way up to the Zoo. With the small wreak of a morning start over with, and our feet starting to hurt, we headed back to the hotel to change shoes, and start over. After getting some better shoes on, we caught the St Charles Streetcar, and headed over to the zoo. It was a great ride through the garden district, and uptown. We were dropped off at the Park, and went to the left around the golf course.
It may have been the longer way to go, but we caught some great sites of nesting birds, and people out enjoying the beautiful day. We finally made it to the Zoo, and took a stroll through all the great exhibits. I definitely loved the Louisiana Swamp exhibit, and it was my wife%26#39;s favorite part as well. After making our way out of the zoo, we called United Cab to come pick us up to head on over to my favorite part of the trip.
After a very short wait for the cab to show up, we headed down Magazine Street to the big Fisherman to get some shrimp and crawfish. WOW, what a great call this was! My wife was nervous about us taking the crawfish and shrimp across the street to the Bulldog because she couldn%26#39;t believe they would let us in with it. Of course, this is New Orleans, and everything seems ok down here! The food was very cheap, very good, and heading across the street to the Bulldog was phenomenal! Loved eating the seafood in the beer garden, and enjoyed quite a few different kinds of beer as well. The people were great, very relaxed, and fun. It was a great way to get over the rough beginning of the day.
After topping off our drinks, we decided to take a stroll down magazine street to take a self guided tour of the garden district. This was my wife%26#39;s favorite part of the trip. The houses were beautiful, the neighborhood was so quiet and peaceful. It was a great contrast to the architecture and feel of the quarter. Seeing beads hanging from trees along Magazine street was pretty cool too. It really made you think about the times other people had walking down this same street during the parades of Mardi Gras and such.
We ended our tour at the cemetary, which was closed. It was a bit of a bummer that we couldn%26#39;t walk through there, but was probably for the best since I heard even this one could be dangerous at times. So we headed across the street to the Commanders Palace to check out the menu there. It looked great, however, they were booked with reservations through the weekend, and it did seem a bit expensive so we headed on back to the Streetcar to take us back to the Hotel.
We took a short break at the Hotel Monteleone Pool and had a few drinks poolside and enjoyed the view from the rooftop. Went back to the room, got changed, and went over to the Palace Cafe to eat dinner. I had the crabmeat cheesecake, my wife had a salad, and we split the seafood au gratin. It was good, but nothing special. It was nice sitting outside people watching though, and wasn%26#39;t too expensive so that worked.
After dinner, we went to Harrah%26#39;s to try our luck at a few table games. $40 later, we headed over to the streetcar to take us down to Frenchman street for a night out.
Wow! What a great time! Started the night off at the Blue Nile, where a group of young kids, maybe 15-17 years old (tops) were playing. This was my wife%26#39;s favorite band of the whole trip. After they took a break, we bar hopped our way up Frenchman street. It was a great time, and much more laid back than Bourbon Street. After a few too many drinks, we decided to call it a night, and caught a cab back to the hotel to get some sleep.
Trip Report: 4/9-4/12 (Day TWO)
Thanks for your report! You can%26#39;t get any better than Big Fisherman + the Bulldog - good local experience!
No comments:
Post a Comment