Vaca 2020 - Day 3 - NOLA Walking Tour

On the 3rd day of vacation, we woke up and walked to The Cafe DuMonde for some authentic Beignets, which were good, very good (not too mention the coffee!) but both boys were not happy that there was no bacon, sausage or eggs.  Not gonna lie, a pastry is ok as a side dish, but NOTHING more!  We also ordered WAY TOO many of these and I ended up carrying a leftovers bag on our walking tour.

Caleb was MOST unhappy about the Beignets and wondered how a cafe that only served those (they don't, but it was a limited menu due to Corona20-1) could stay in business.  When we told him that the restaurant was in business for nearly 40 years,  he was kind of, pardon the phrase, pissy.  LOL!! 

A few blocks later, we were crossing the street to get to where we were to meet our tour guide.  The Market Cafe happened to be on this little corner and Caleb wanted eggs, hash browns, bacon and sausage!  We ordered just one while Rob complained about nearly everything.  We had the most wonderful waitress there too.  Caleb ate his breakfast and was now perfectly happy and ready to go walking!

Let's go for a quick walk.

 

This was just on our walk down to the place where we meet the guy who takes us on our walk...  Just a side street not far from our hotel where it seemed like a good place to be mugged and killed.

Here we are looking across Jackson square at the St. Louis Cathedral.  It looked like a beautiful park but as you can see by the white paper signs, it was closed.  Apparently, you're allowed to do all of the nefarious stuff that people were doing when we "arroved" around 7:30 on a Saturday night, but you can't go in THERE!  I'll bet they have the virus trapped inside the fence...   ahem.   This is the church who, against the rules of their religion, reluctantly rang the church bells around midnight on March 21st, 1788 when the great fire raged in New Orleans.

This is while sitting at the Market Cafe waiting for Caleb to consume his happiness in the form of breakfast.  The building on the left side of the photo is where we are to meet our tour guide...  he was late.  Lucky for him, he was very good at what he does and explained in great details, the history of the areas where we were walking.  The other family with us barely ever talked so he and I had some good conversation!

Same exact spot as above, but this time looking South.  The Market Cafe is the building on the right side of the pic.

This is a little "alley" between the St. Louis Cathedral and a museum called The Calbildo.  This alley is literally called Pirates Alley and he had some good stories for that.  Apparently, there was a lot of money that changed hands in this alley for various reasons and if you focus on the doorway just on the dudes left arm,  that was the exit door to the prison where legend has it, Jean Lafitte's brother, Pierre, was imprisoned until apparently being released in a trade with Jean, for British intelligence. There's a LOT of information our there and I wish that I were able to recall more of the guides talk as he reconstructed a ton of local lore into his stories and saying why certain things could simply not be true.

I took this for no other reason other than my sister Doris.  I didn't even know what it was/is, but apparently it's a place to spend a LOT of money on food.  Burger for $18.  Lamb Chops for $50 and so on...  

The court house.  As the tour guide asked, can you tell where they ran out of money??  LOL.  About halfway up is the answer where the building begins using a much cheaper type of stone.

Nothing in particular, just New Orleans streets.  However, after looking at Google.maps roadside view, I'm very glad that we were here during the Coronavirus22-3 as the streets are always crazy busy in those photographs and you can see how busy they are for us!

Antoine's Restaurant, which is the oldest "foodery" in New Orleans, was closed due to restorations during the Coronavirus11+8.  The guide says it is one heckuva place to catch a lunch for not all that much $$$ but I cannot confirm nor deny his claim as they are still closed and you cannot access their menu online.

This classy looking joint was called Hand Grenades.  Their sign reads "Drinks and Beer To Go", which the guide also told us about how all of that got started!  I think it was after prohibition where a clever fella came up with an idea of how to drum up more business and that was to have a "drink window" where peeps on the streets could just walk up, order a drink and be on their way.  It seems to have caught on!

Nothing but graffiti that I thought was interesting. 

This little pirates cove is called LaFitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar.  Here is where he told us how the ever-so-honorable Jean LaFitte would buy slaves, take the ones he wanted and declare the rest to be defective due to disease and such, returning them for money.  And then, when they went back to auction as defective, one of his cohorts would go buy them at greatly discounted prices.  Soooooo...  pretty cool to have a place named after a man like that?  Or,   something...   wow. 

That was the end of our tour.  We went to a local joint where the fella said they had excellent icy drinks (and he wasn't lying!) and some fine po'boys before heading back to the hotel before our next little adventure.