New Orleans

[Amby 490]

We just decided we're going to New Orleans next weekend to see my dad and he works all day Saturday. We have no clue what are the best things to see/do. We're getting there late Friday night and leaving early Monday morning (May 16-19). . Any suggestions? We will pack in as much stuff as we can without killing ourselves.

[True Love at Last 15]

Hi I live in New Orleans.....what do you like to do? The French Quarter and Riverfront are our best attractions.....pm me and I can help more.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Cafe Du Monde...

coffee and beignets

http://www.cafedumonde.com/

[Amby 490]

I love beignets!!!!!!

[GabiandVi 34]

I'm not sure if it is still viable since Katrina, but the D-Day Museum is a national museum and very impressive, even if you aren't really interested in history.

If you haven't burnt out on the Quarter or the Riverfront, there are some really good walking tours. They are theme based, and you can choose the one you like.

Is NOMA recovered? You could go there. Or get out of the city and go on a swamp tour, or a tour of the plantations (a bit boring IMO).

Or just take a drive. If you go across the river and up the river road to the Sunshine Bridge, then cross back over and take, is it 22? around to Highway 190 back around through Ponchatoula, Madisonville, and Mandeville and back across the Causeway to NOLA, you will see some really cool scenery. The riverfront in Madisonville (Tchefuncte River) is really quaint, and there are some good restaurants there.

I'm HOMESICK!

[DeadPoolX 9]

I don't suppose you've ever heard of Frommer's Travel Guides, have you? You might want to take a look at their section on New Orleans and see what they have to say about it.

Without viewing that website, I can tell you straight off the bat (as someone who has been to NO), you absolutely must keep a strong hold on your wallet or purse when walking around in crowds, since there are tons of pickpockets and would-be thieves there. It's also highly recommended against walking alone at night, especially around any areas that aren't very brightly lit. I realize all of this could be attributed to any large city, but it seems crowds that get packed together are a little more common in NO than elsewhere.

I'm sure there are plenty of other tips to be given, but I can't think of them at the moment. I've only been there once and that was in late December 1999/early January 2000 for the millennium. I spent practically the entire time in the French Quarter, since that's the most interesting part to me (and from what I've gathered, many others as well). Since Hurricane Katrina hit, things might be different in some ways, so it'd definitely be good to read up on the city using a source that was written relatively recently.

Edited May 6, 2008 by DeadPoolX

[MissStacey 1]

I'm not sure if it is still viable since Katrina, but the D-Day Museum is a national museum and very impressive, even if you aren't really interested in history.

If you haven't burnt out on the Quarter or the Riverfront, there are some really good walking tours. They are theme based, and you can choose the one you like.

Is NOMA recovered? You could go there. Or get out of the city and go on a swamp tour, or a tour of the plantations (a bit boring IMO).

Or just take a drive. If you go across the river and up the river road to the Sunshine Bridge, then cross back over and take, is it 22? around to Highway 190 back around through Ponchatoula, Madisonville, and Mandeville and back across the Causeway to NOLA, you will see some really cool scenery. The riverfront in Madisonville (Tchefuncte River) is really quaint, and there are some good restaurants there.

I'm HOMESICK!

D-Day is up and running. We went a while back.

[GabiandVi 34]

I'm not sure if it is still viable since Katrina, but the D-Day Museum is a national museum and very impressive, even if you aren't really interested in history.

If you haven't burnt out on the Quarter or the Riverfront, there are some really good walking tours. They are theme based, and you can choose the one you like.

Is NOMA recovered? You could go there. Or get out of the city and go on a swamp tour, or a tour of the plantations (a bit boring IMO).

Or just take a drive. If you go across the river and up the river road to the Sunshine Bridge, then cross back over and take, is it 22? around to Highway 190 back around through Ponchatoula, Madisonville, and Mandeville and back across the Causeway to NOLA, you will see some really cool scenery. The riverfront in Madisonville (Tchefuncte River) is really quaint, and there are some good restaurants there.

I'm HOMESICK!

The more I think about it, the more I would recommend taking the drive, but I had the details a little off. I recommend crossing the river and taking the river road up to the Sunshine Ridge. You will pass several plantation homes along that road. There are plantations on both sides of the river, but Oak Alley is on the West Bank, and it is the most impressive to look at from the road. The river road is hwy 18. The Sunshine bridge was named by former governor, Jimmie Davis, who wrote "You Are My Sunshine" the Louisiana state song. For years there were no roads leading up to it on the West Bank. It was a bridge to nowhere, but it was his legacy.

You cross back over the river at Donaldsonville. John Folse used to have an incredible restaurant at the base of the bridge named Lafitte's Landing, but I'm told it has closed. You will take hwy 22 all the way to the Causeway. Hwy 22 winds along a bayou and there are the coolest little camps all along it. I discovered it by accident one day when I took a different route back to St. Tammany Parish where my parents lived from St. Mary Parish where I was working. Since then, my family often chooses to take that route because it is so interesting, and a friend of mine from Boston who was visiting NO from China for a conference rode his bike along this exact route I'm telling you, only in the opposite direction.

Hwy 22 passes under I-10 at Sorrento. I used to see a sign there for a couchin du lait (Cajun pig roast). It brings you to Springfield where there is a large Hungarian community, Ponchatoula which is the "strawberry capital", very near Manchac where you could go to world famous restaurant, Middendorf's, on to Madisonville, a small town that was where many of the slaves freed by Andrew Jackson in the war of 1812 settled, but which isn't so little anymore since it has been "discovered," but which is still quite quaint, and then to the Causeway, the longest bridge in the world, 24 miles over water.

If you don't want to spend as much time and plantations hold no interest for you, you could just take I-10 to Sorrento and then make the loop back to NO.

Or go to the D-Day Museum. I'm glad to learn that it is up and running again. I found the propaganda room shocking.

Or you could go to Slidell and take a tour of the Honey Island Swamp. There have been many sightings in that swamp of the Honey Island Swamp Monster who, strangly, resembles Bigfoot a lot. Or you could go to Abita Springs to the Abita Brew Pub/House? Or you could go there and ride your bike along the Tammany Trace. There is also a vineyard in the Folsom area called Ponchatrain Vineyards, but it wasn't very extensive. Oh yeah, there is the Global Wildlife refuge around Goodbee. You ride in covered wagons through open pastures of African Safari animals.

Edited May 6, 2008 by GabiandVi

[Amby 490]

thanks for the tips everyone! I'm going to have my husband read them tonight and see what he thinks.