New Orleans day 1

We started our first full day in New Orleans in what's known as the Garden District. There aren't actually that many gardens, but there are some very impressive homes and churches in the area. We wondered through the heritage listed Lafayette Cemetary No 1 which is filled with some very old family crypts. We also drove past Loyolla University which looks like it could have been a perfect setting for today's Royal Wedding! We also walked along Magazine Street, which has some nice shops and coffee (for Nadia) and donuts (for both of us)!

We then headed down to a park along the shore of the Mississippi River. There were different people setting up BBQs and Crawfish boils with big marquess - we don't really know if they were setting up private functions or just hoping other people would come alogn to join in! The Mississippi was pretty impressive - there were some massive barges travelling up and down.

From there we headed to the French Quarter. The French Market and many of the back streets were crowded with people and many of the shops are filled with souveniers. The shops and homes on some of the quieter street were very pretty and we even saw a wedding procession along Bourbon Street, complete with a marching band and police escort! But the area was just too crowded and hot for us to spend too much time there. We also decided that if the areas was so busy during the day, it would only be worse on a Saturday night, which isn't really our speed.

We got back to the car and started to think about lunch. We headed to bakery about 15 minutes from the Quarter. It turned out that this was also a really popular because there was a line out the door just to order. Luckily just across the road was an annual festival called the Bayou Boogaloo. The banks of the water were lined with food trucks, market stalls and 4 music stages. People came with canoes and inflatables to float along the Bayou. It was a really lovely atmosphere so we found a spot under the shade of an Oak tree and had lunch and a cool lemonade.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to cool down, have a rest, do some laundry, and think about our plans for the evening. We knew we wanted to go out and see some music, but we wanted to be a bit out of the way of the more crowded parts of town. We found the details of a couple of bars in downtown New Orleans that have live music every night. We booked a table at the Little Gem Saloon and saw Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers. It was a small, older bar with great food and cocktails and the band was really good.