It’s been a bit difficult to plan each day’s agenda for this trip, as you have four people, each with different ideas of what is worthwhile but also four people all continually saying “whatever you want, it’s fine with me”. Nonetheless, we’ve made it through. Laura, in particular, did a significant amount of research and thinking about it before we came, and so had the most concrete suggestions. I also did research, and had almost no useful suggestions. But we muddled through.

During dinner Wednesday evening the four of us talked a bit about what our plan for Thursday should be. We all were either tired of planning, or ran out of ideas, so the decision taken was to put off deciding until Thursday morning. The idea of checking out some art galleries came up, and Laura once again did the research to figure out where we should go. Fortunately, we already had dinner reservations, so there was no need to agonize over that.

Royal Street in the French Quarter is only a few blocks from our hotels (1), so we walked over. Most of the street was blocked off as a pedestrian mall, even though (or perhaps because) it was Wednesday. So it was a bit more pleasant walking up and back. There are dozens of art galleries, many of them selling very similar looking paintings of stereotypical New Orleans / French Quarter symbols using a pallet knife technique (2).

The galleries had lots of other stuff, including sculptures and more generic scenes.

We also got one more look at street life, both the buildings and the people that spend their time in the French Quarter. Like us.

We ended the day with an early dinner at Antoine’s, a very old restaurant on St. Louis Street. Despite having called the day before to check out a couple of items for Sally to be able to eat, we were disappointed when we arrived. The filet mignon, while tasty, had to be served without any sauce. And the onion soup, promised to be garlic free, suddenly contained garlic. This happens often when we try and sort it out via phone; it even happens when we are dealing with it in the restaurant – dishes that were garlic-free suddenly have garlic in them. Oh well.

Tomorrow we fly home. Rob and Laura have an early flight, hence our early dinner. Our flight is mid-afternoon, so we’ll have breakfast in the hotel and relax until check-out time. And finish writing this blog 🙂 .

(1) In case I didn’t mention it earlier, our hotels were two short blocks apart, so it was easy to meet each day on our way wherever.

(2) Using a pallet knife the artist can create three-dimensional effects on their work where the paint is very thick in some spots.

The two most important museums in NOLA are the NOMA, which we visited yesterday, and the National WWII Museum. I’m not a big fan of glorifying war, although I have the utmost respect for the people that make huge sacrifices so that I can enjoy the benefits of a free country. But the WWII museum in NOLA has a reputation for being excellent, and many people feel that a single day is not enough time to really cover it. Rob and Laura thought one day would be enough, while Sally and I though a little less than that would work. So they went early and got a headstart, and we arranged to get there around 11 and meet them when a movie they wanted to see ended at noon (1).

I’ll say right up front that everyone who visits NOLA should go to this museum. It’s one of the best museums I’ve ever been to, telling the gut-wrenching story of the war with its victories, losses, brilliant guesses and stupid decisions. Wars suck – all wars. People die and are maimed. Not just the fighters, but the civilians that get caught in the cross fire, or worse, are deliberately targeted by one of the combatants to achieve some political or racial goal.

A major part of the museum is the story of the two main theaters of WWII, the European and the Pacific theaters, told from the American perspective. They do a great job of providing context to some of the decisions that various countries made as the world moved towards the war. Some of this was stuff I knew, some was stuff I had forgotten, some was new to me. For instance, why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? Probably in part because they had been fighting with China for ten years, and the US was supplying China with weapons and supplies.

Another point that the museum makes, repeatedly, is how the American and Allied generals made lots of mistakes and suffered many defeats as they struggled to defeat the German and Japanese forces. I don’t mean this to be critical; they were working with highly imperfect information and had to assess how to proceed without having all the facts. For instance, early in the war one could not know where an enemy’s warships were – there was no satellite technology, and even radar was very primitive. So the fleets and aircraft would go to where the strategists thought they might find the enemy, but were often wrong.

My sense is that we won what became a war of attrition – in both theaters – because our manufacturing capability was larger and it was almost never attacked or damaged by the enemy. In contrast, a key part of our strategy was to destroy the manufacturing capabilities of both Germany and Japan. This was ultimately successful and contributed significantly to the victory.

The museum includes lots of vignettes about the bravery and actions of individual soldiers, sailors and fliers who took enormous risks to protect their fellows and win individual battles. I’m sure, although it’s not mentioned at all, that the enemy had the same experience. They just didn’t have the resources to last long enough.

There’s an entire section of the museum devoted to the Holocaust. There’s a room about Anne Frank. There are continual film loops of the concentration camps, the US soldiers reactions when they discovered them, the prisoners reaction to the arrival of the Allied troops. They have oral history videos from the Shoah Foundation of survivors talking about their experience.

I walked out a bit overwhelmed by the complexity of managing the war, given the number of moving parts (3), imperfect information about what was happening, limited knowledge of what the enemy was planning, and the competitiveness amongst the Allied political and military leadership. It reminded me that ordinary men and women can do extraordinary things under pressure – extraordinarily good, and also extraordinarily horrible.

If you get down to New Orleans, make it part of your visit.

(1) We also had complementary tickets for the museum, but not the movies, that we wanted to take advantage of.

(2) Most of the images in this post are photos I took from short videos that are shown continuously throughout the museum.

(3) About 16 million men and women served in the military during the war. This was 12% of the US population at the time.

This morning we invited Rob and Laura to join us for a leisurely breakfast at our hotel. The Windsor Court, as you’ve seen in some of the pictures I’ve posted, is a fancy place and they serve breakfast in their Grill Room with white tablecloths and uniformed wait staff and lots of table stuff. So we thought it would be fun.

Our plan for the rest of day was to head to the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA). They are reputed to have an outstanding collection of art, and an extensive sculpture garden. Much like New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, it’s located in City Park, a very large space with lots of other stuff. We thought we might also explore the rest of the park.

The first question was how to get there. It’s four miles from the hotel, so clearly we weren’t walking. Our debate was which transit mode to take. We could pick up the Canal Street streetcar five minutes from the hotel, and it would drop us an eight minute walk to the museum. With our senior discounts, this would cost

U $1.60 for the four of us. Or we could Uber; no walking involved, and the cost would be $20-25. Rob & Laura both strongly favored the streetcar, but Sally and I were skeptical based on our unpleasant rides earlier in the week when we went out to the Garden District. That ride was hot, crowded and seemed interminable.

We acquiesced to the streetcar and had a pleasant surprise. We boarded at the second stop, so we immediately got seats. Also, the Canal Street line is air conditioned, unlike the Magazine Street line we took on Saturday. So it was an easy 30 minute ride.

NOMA is in a classical building in the middle of City Park with an imposing entrance fronted by a traffic circle and a fountain. We spent about two hours walking around and covered pretty much the entire collection. They have a broad collection, primarily ranging from the Italian Renaissance to modern art. The works include paintings, photographs, sculptures and multi-media pieces. While they have more than 40,000 works in the collection, a very small portion can be displayed.

My completely naive and unknowledgeable assessment is that they have a very high quality collection on display. But after growing up in New York, every museum feels small compared to the Met. As I said, we covered the museum in about two hours, while I think you would need days to do the same at the Met, the British Museum, or the other big European museums.

We stopped in the museum restaurant for lunch, which none of us enjoyed much. All of the food was laced with garlic, so all Sally could have was a pastry (1). I ordered a margarita flatbread, that came drowning in pesto. It had so much garlic in it that (1) Sally wouldn’t come within five feet of me, and (2) even my stomach was queasy all afternoon.

But after that unsatisfying meal, we went out to stroll through the sculpture garden. These were 90 big pieces of modern art placed around a 13 acre landscaped portion of the Park. I enjoyed this, even though I’m not a big modern art fan. While some of the pieces are abstract, many were more concrete. However it was hot in the sun and we eventually ran out of steam.

So we went back out of the park and caught the streetcar heading back downtown. As before, getting on at the first stop gave us seats in the air conditioned car.

We walked into the French Quarter to have another look around, and we actually walked pretty much the entire length back and forth. While the 30 minute streetcar ride gave us some time to rest, I think we were really walked out for the day.

After wandering without any real destination we stopped in a bar for drinks, then headed back in the direction of the hotels before stopping in a Greek restaurant for dinner.

(1) It was a very good pastry but not nutritious.

Monday morning we booked a City Tour through the hotel. The description was detailed, but only told me one thing: we would drive by a lot of stuff.

So the four of us met in our hotel lobby and boarded the van with our driver Oz, and then hit another couple of hotels and got five other tourists. Then we drove around for three hours.

The tour itself was okay. We really covered a lot of ground, and saw all of the things listed on the itinerary. We only got out of the van once, and that was to get some beignets and stretch our legs in the City Park. Unfortunately, the van’s battery failed while we were there and we had to wait a few minutes while Oz arranged a jump start (1).

It also meant that I took almost no pictures for the three hours we were in the van. While you could in principle take pictures through the dirty windows of the van while driving, experience tells me they are rarely any good. And I wasn’t about to ask the group to wait while I hopped out and tried to find a good picture.

Once we got back to the hotel, we all rested from the exhausting ride for a few minutes and then went off to a nice lunch. The plan for the evening was to go to Frenchman Street for some jazz, and then have dinner in the French Quarter. Frenchman Street is the center of jazz culture in New Orleans, with a a row of clubs lining the short street. Most offer only music and drinks; some charge a cover, others just a drink minimum; but in all cases, it’s really reasonable way to see really good music.

Frenchman Street is on the opposite end of the French Quarter from our hotel, about a mile away. Sally and I decided to Uber over, while Rob and Laura elected to walk.

We chose DBA’s as our club for the evening. They open at 6:00, so being obsessive types, we got there around 5:30. The boss felt sorry for us and let us in a few minutes early, so we got prime seats. As did the other two people there early. In fact, most of the the band didn’t wander in until after we were inside.

Unlike rock bands (2), the jazz band members arrive carrying their instrument and nothing else. The venue has a simple PA, and most of the instruments are purely acoustic anyway, not requiring amplifiers or specialized sound modifiers. The Secret6 actually had eight players at our show: trombone, two trumpets, clarinet, bass, guitar, piano and washboard/percussion. At least four of them also sang solos while we were there, and most of them chimed in on some choruses in the songs that had vocal parts.

As is traditional in jazz, each player took a solo during most of the songs. Even the bass player and percussionist took solos. We all felt the band was excellent and we enjoyed the music.

We even got a few swing dancers during the show. Two woman, in particular, put on quite a performance.

We stayed for the first set, which ran about an hour. There was an arts fair across the street which we took a quick look through, then off to dinner at NOLA Cookery in the French Quarter. I have no pictures from there; it was very crowded. But Sally was able to have spare ribs, as the barbecue sauce was garlic free! We may have to move to NOLA.

(1) Oz was able to get this done in about 15 minutes. He’s been guiding in NOLA for 30 years, and must know people all over. He ran off and came back almost immediately with someone from the restaurant who had a jump-start battery with him. Amazing!

(2) Even for the weekly jam I play in back home, it takes me one or two trips from the car to carry my equipment.

The centerpiece of our plan for today was to walk around the French Quarter in the morning, then a jazz “brunch” at 12:30, and go to the Riverfront for the afternoon and dinner.

About 15 minutes before we were all supposed to leave the sky opened and it started pouring. So a quick series of texts ensued, and we scrapped the morning plan. I passed some time in the hotel lobby, where there was a Sunday brunch thing being entertained by a harpist.

We reconvened just after noon to walk to our brunch. This took us through the middle of the French Quarter.

There are many Jazz Brunches, and indeed much jazz, in New Orleans. The jazz brunch at Arnoud’s Jazz Bistro is well known: it’s a place where locals go for special occasions, and tourist go because it’s well known. The setup is a large dining room, furnished in a very traditional style, with gigantic painted portraits of the owner and his wife on the wall. Many of the patrons are dressed in their Sunday finest – dresses, sport coats, etc. They actually have a published dress code, which forbids shorts, collar-less t-shirts, athletic attire or shoes, etc. (1)

You get a three course meal at a combined price, and three strolling musicians playing a variety of standards, pop and jazz tunes. The guitjo (2) player and alto Saxophone player had no trouble getting around the crowded room, but the double bass player found it more complicated. He had to lift his instrument up high to get between the tables.

Our plan for the morning had been to explore the French Quarter and then go to the Riverfront area. The rain scotched the exploration part, but we did get to walk into the Quarter to get to Arnoud’s, and then through it again to get to the Riverfront area. The Riverfront is mostly a long park that skirts the Mississippi, anchored at both ends by shopping. The park itself – the Woldenberg Riverfront Park – is named after Malcolm Woldenberg, a philatrothropist who made his money in the liquor business after moving to New Orleans from Montreal in 1941.

The park also has pavilions, boat docks and some statuary. Among the areas is a Holocaust Memorial.

Everyone was pretty tired after walking to and through the park, so we sat down and did a little group planning about our itinerary for the upcoming days. A key decision was dinner tonight, and we all agreed on Meril, where Sally and I had eaten Friday afternoon. So we trouped back to our respective hotels to rest and cleanup, and then enjoyed a casual dinner.

We had walked down Bourbon Street Saturday night, but as I wrote, the crowds made it very difficult to enjoy. Also, I was with a group and didn’t want to hold everyone up while I scouted for photos. So after dinner I took myself and my camera back to Bourbon Street. It’s only a 10 minute walk from our hotel to the edge of the French Quarter and the beginning of Bourbon Street.

While New Orleans is known for jazz, most of the music in the bars on Bourbon Street is rock, with some blues, funk and pop mixed in. Many of the bars have no cover or minimum on Sunday (3), so I was able to sample a number of bands. Two or three were very good; several others were just okay.

I’m not a big bar scene participant, so the way the bands try to make money was new to me. They all have Venmo along with tip jars. They also have systems where you can make a request, along with the tip you’re willing to pay if they play it. The request list is displayed on large screens, mostly with $20 tip pledges. I suspect that these were just seeding the pot, much the way dropping 10s or 20s in the tip jar would be, because I didn’t hear any of the displayed songs actually played.

As I said, it was not nearly as crowded as Saturday night, but there were still plenty of people of all ages enjoying themselves.

(1) I wore a golf shirt with a collar and black jeans, and felt very comfortable. But I’m pretty casual in my dress.

(2) A “guitjo” is an instrument that is shaped like a banjo, but strung and tuned like a guitar. So guitar players can easily create sounds similar to what a banjo makes without having to learn new fingerings.

(3) I don’t know if the situation is different on Friday or Saturday nights.

Several years ago we took a cruise with our friends, Rob and Laura. They are among our oldest and dearest friends; Rob was in our wedding party all those years ago. When they told us last year that they were planning a trip to New Orleans and asked us if we were interested, we jumped at the chance. They flew in yesterday also, but on a later flight and so we didn’t meet up until this morning after breakfast.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I went out early this morning for a pre-breakfast stroll. The weather forecast for the week is warm and humid pretty much everyday, with showers and/or thunderstorms most days. So I was trying to get a little look around before the heat and humidity kicked in.

It didn’t work. At 7:30, while it was only 73F, the humidity was approximately infinite. The streets were wet from overnight showers which hadn’t evaporated .

The streets were pretty empty. It’s Saturday morning, but a few people were either heading to work or prepping stores and restaurants for the day’s influx of tourists. A few runners were out trying, like me, to beat the heat & humidity.

I did learn something: the first governor of New Orleans, during French ownership, was Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, a French-Canadian borne in Montreal. I also learned that New Orleans decided it’s cheaper to put up a sign than take down no-longer used streetcar shelters.

After breakfast in the hotel, we met up with Rob & Laura for our first excursion. Our objective was to walk around the Garden District, and then proceed along Magazine Street to look at the interesting shops and get some lunch. Getting to the Garden District involved riding in one of the streetcars which run here. Our concierge said the tickets were $1.25 or $3.00 for a day pass, but it turned out the senior tickets are only 40 cents – so we all went that way. The streetcars are cute, but noisy, crowded (at least on the weekend), and slow. The under-2 mile ride took 20 minutes (it took 30 minutes coming back later), and it was like a NYC subway during rush hour with no air conditioning, just open windows.

We walked around the Garden District, following a self-guided tour that the concierge had given us. It’s quite an interesting area; some of the houses are enormous – upwards of 11,000 sq ft – and are all on lots just big enough to fit the building. Some of them have high walls or shrubs around them, but most are just open to the street. Each house in the guide has a story – who built it, which architect designed it, how it passed down through owners over the centuries, etc. – none of which I remember (1). And the architecture, including the fences and railings, were often very ornate.

At this point, we were all hot, tired and thirsty and started walking down Magazine Street looking for anyplace to eat. It took us what seemed like a long time to find Joey K’s, but probably was only 15 minutes or so. It was perfect for us. Air conditioning, cold drinks, and simple food we all could eat.

After lunch and recovering, we walked for a while longer down Magazine Street and then headed back to pickup a streetcar for the return trip. It was even more crowded, and even warmer inside, and the 30 minute, 2 mile ride seemed to take forever.

Dinner was at a restaurant in the French Quarter called Bayona and was excellent. After dinner, we decided to walk back to the hotels and go along Bourbon Street for part of the walk. It was quite an experience, and a bit of a mess. Bourbon Street is the center of seedy culture in NOLA, extending 12 blocks and is the home of bars, restaurants and strip clubs.

It is now a pedestrian mall, and on a Saturday night, it was extremely crowded. All kinds of people are there: mature tourists like us, kids in t-shirts and kids in formal wear, and undoubtedly some people looking to cause problems (2). The crowding was exacerbated by street repairs which blocked most of the street and one sidewalk, crowding hundreds of people (including us) onto a single sidewalk.

(1) Except for one house which was owned by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails for a while. I couldn’t tell you which one.

(2) we saw no evidence of any trouble, but I hear it’s there.

Despite all of the traveling Sally and I have done, we’ve never been to New Orleans, or indeed, Louisiana (1). We arrived yesterday after an uneventful trip down, and found our way to the Windsor Court Hotel at the edge of the French Quarter, and with a view of the Mississippi River. We’ve been close to the mighty Mississippi before, when we visited Memphis several years ago. But this time we actually have a view of the river from our hotel room, albeit looking between some other hotels that are a bit closer than we are.

I’ll probably add some more shots as we go through our time here. As usual, Sally found us these lovely accommodations. This room, unlike too many that we’ve stayed in, has adequate storage space for us. And we need less than we historically have, as we again traveled with carry-on bags only.

Friday was a short day for us, as we checked-in just before 3:00pm. After checking out the room, we spoke to the concierge to get a place to get some food; while our flight served what they called “lunch”, it wasn’t very satisfying to either of us.

She suggested we go to Meril on Girod St., a 10 minute walk from the hotel. It was quite good. We ate lightly.

Then we started walking back towards the hotel, but quickly detoured to look for some dessert. Beignets are a specialty of NOLA (2) and we found Cafe Beignet; how bad could it be? It was actually very nice. Sally got an order of three huge beignets for only $5 – and could only eat one.

Not all restaurants are as friendly as either Meril or Cafe Beignet; we passed this one later. They seem to have a lot of conditions and rules.

That was it for our Day 1 adventures. Back in the hotel room, I struggled for a while trying to find broadcast TV on either of the TVs in the room. Finally I realized they don’t have that – the TVs have Hulu, Netflix, etc., but rely on your account to access. But they do support screen mirroring, so we were able to watch by casting YouTubeTV from our iPads. Whew!

(1) Louisiana is the 44th of 50 States that I’ve been to (not counting airport stops), plus I’ve been to DC and Puerto Rico.

(2) For the uninitiated – and we were, until planning this trip – the nickname for “New Orleans Louisiana” is NOLA. Get it?