CITY SPOTLIGHT
For more information,
contact Thu Tran at ttran@
neworleanscvb.com or
visit neworleanscvb.com.
New Orleans
More, please
BY BOB ROUSE
WHEN WE WERE IN NEW ORLEANS for Travel Exchange ’15,
all I could think about was going back. I wanted to eat more
shrimp, stroll more streets, meet more people and experience
more places.
I just wanted more New Orleans.
So after I moved into the Courier office and needed cities to
write about, I dialed up my friend Tara Letort, who’s with the
New Orleans CVB, and sort of invited myself to visit her city.
I wanted more of New Orleans, and I got it. During three
days of strolling around the French Quarter, I saw a dozen
people on a Segway tour, Darth Vader walking to work, two
mostly nude ladies and a gold man.
Hola, NOLA.
I saw lots more, of course. Staying at Maison Dupuy in the
French Quarter, I could easily walk to the restaurants and
attractions I wanted to visit, and for those attractions located
well outside the Quarter, I could walk to a streetcar stop.
24
November 2017
While there’s much to be said for walking (see the aforemen-
tioned Darth Vader, mostly nude ladies, etc.), a New Orleans
visitor will gain a lot by riding.
I spent a wonderful morning with Nancy Landry of Royal
Carriages, who showed me around the sightseeing company’s
stable. Thirty mules call it home, and all are ready to pull a
wagonload of visitors.
“We’ve got wagons to match the group size, and we’ll use as
many as we need,” Nancy said. “We normally operate 13 car-
riages, and we can tour 150 people over the course of two hours.”
She told me they can also add a jazz musician to carriages.
The hour-long mule-drawn carriage tour was fantastic.
Mark Orfila (human) and Cole (mule) led eight of us on a lei-
surely ride up and down French Quarter streets, and we got
out to explore one of the city’s 40 cemeteries. As a native New
Orleanian, Mark proved to be a passionate advocate for the
city and a gifted raconteur of its history—and oh, my, does
that town hold some stories! neworleanscarriages.com
Another gratifying ride I took was aboard the Steamboat
Natchez, part of the New Orleans Steamboat Company. The
paddlewheeler is 26 tons of white oak and steel, and the
Dinner Jazz cruise was grand. The Mississippi River is a busy
place with lots of ships plying its waters, and the riverfront is
lined with interesting industries.
I joined a couple from Australia in the dining room, and
we enjoyed a feast of local cuisine. I had been aboard Natchez
before, when our Travel Exchange crew filled the ship. It was
much quieter with the Australians. steamboatnatchez.com
Attractions listed in bold type are NTA members.
Nancy Landry at the
Royal Carriages stable
By mule and by paddlewheel