A Day Off in New Orleans

Beignet's in the upper left corner

After a really busy week we took some time off!  Yeah!   We drove down to New Orleans after the ZC last night and got up early this morning (well, not too early) to get into the city for breakfast.  We went to Cafe Beignet the one in the Musical Legends Park location.  We wanted to try the Beignet (Benya)'s for breakfast and shared a ham omelet and grits.  Beignet's, it turns out, are really just what we know as scones and then they cover them in powdered sugar.  I have never met a piece of fried bread I didn't like and to cover it in powdered sugar just made it all the more delicious.  Not a bad omelet or grits either.
It is sort of a "hole in the wall" type place at the back of this kind of courtyard.  But the food was good.

Musical Legend's Park

We sat over behind the stage and the lady singing there wasn't bad either.  She did kind of cool jazz songs with a little scat going on occasionally.  This is right on Bourbon Street and we had walked down 2 blocks to get to it and I had seen enough to know that I didn't want to spend the day looking at Tee shirt shops and fortune tellers so we got off Bourbon street one block and had a marvelous day.

Street actor

 We walked over to Royal Street and the street actors and musicians were wonderful.  This guy would hold that pose for about 10 min.  The little dog is stuffed and sort of dressed up but the actor was about 6'2" and he really looked as though he was "stepping out".  We watched him for several minuets at different times on our stroll up and down the street he was great fun.

Street Musicians

The police close off Royal street except for the intersections so these guys are literally IN the street.  They are a tough looking bunch!  When we came by the 1st time the woman and the guy on the right had cigarettes hanging from their mouths.  But, boy can the play Honky tonk type music.  They had the people dancing in the street.  No ballads for these guys.  I would love to know what you call the instrument the woman was playing it was fun to listen to and to watch.


 

Classical

 These two were a class act.  They did everything from Carmen to Cats to Sweet Georgia Brown and stuff I didn't recognize but loved.  I would like to know what they do when they are not playing on the street.  They were equally as talented at their respective instruments because the guitarist was never just the accompaniment, she always had her own stuff with the violin supporting in every selection.

Mask store

  

Loved the fact that above the stores people had their homes.  The guide book says that some of the apartments have been occupied for up to 5 & 6 generations by the same families.  They are really beautiful buildings.
This store sold incredibly beautiful masks for Marti Gras and for Mascarades which are held all year round.  Feathers, sequins, lacquer paint, jewels, just really beautiful stuff.

Voted most interesting of the day

It began to rain and we were lucky enough to take refuge in this very unique store, "Antique Guns and Coins".  They have coins that cost over a million dollars.  Stuff from 400-600 BC.  Pieces of Spanish eight that have been raised out of ship wreaks in the bay off the coast of NO.  Fascinating!  Then the guns were interesting.  Dueling pistols from the early 1700's still in their carved and inlaid wooden boxes with all their "accoutrements"  Springfield Rifles dating from 1832 and beyond. Breast Plate of armor, javelins or pikes just all kinds of interesting things.  It was like being a a museum and we spent a good 20-30 minuets in here until the rain let up a bit.

 We walked on down the street and decided that we wanted to see the river front.  The rain started up again and for a while we sat in a doorway of a house, kind of under the over hang.  The rain was determined and so were we, so we walked on down and past the Jackson Square which was quite sad because the street musicians and actors and artists had everything covered up and they were over on the sidewalk under the store awnings just like all the tourists.  Jackson Square is behind Dad and also the Cathedral of St. Louis.  Dad is standing in front of a statue of Andrew Jackson.

I on the other hand am at the opposite side of the levee (made to keep the Mississippi river with in it's bounds) with the Mississippi in the background.  I want you to know that it was raining buckets when these two pictures were taken.  My shoes have leather insoles and they got so slippery that I had to walk hanging on to dad so I didn't slip and ruin a knee.




  

Pere Antoine's

Our table by the open window

The rain got so bad that we decide to go home but then we passed by this place again and decided that we couldn't go home without some real Cajun/Creole food.  Pere Antoine's

As it says in it's add it is one of the old established places for real N' awlins food.








Of course it was raining so not bright and sunny like these pictures but we sat at the table in the open window.  We ordered the specials and had a great lunch

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The one in front was the best.  Red beans and rice and shrimp creole on the plate.  The little side dish is Jumbalaya.  This came with a small bowl of chicken gumbo that was a good start to the meal and ended with a really decadent bread pudding covered in who knows what kinds of sauce.

 Pasta dish at the back was another special, it had sausage in a tomato sauce that was good but not as good as the red beans and shrimp creole.  we finished off that plate but brought the pasta back to the hotel.

It had stopped raining by the time we finished eating but we decided we had seen the best of the day so we came home about 3:30 pm took a nap till about 7 and have been hard at work ever since.