As you can tell from this photo, taken in Jackson Square, we were very fortunate with the weather for our New Orleans weekend. It was cool, but not cold, and there was no rain in sight. Hardly even any clouds.
One great advantage to visiting the Big Easy in other than summertime [when the living is easy] is that the weather is conducive to the opening of the characteristic door/windows in the walls of most of the restaurants in the French Quarter. Originally built before air conditioning, most of these picturesque features probably close up and chill down during the hot months.
But we were treated to such nice views as these at Pere Antoine's and Voila, on the left and right, respectively. We ate a late dinner (actually Joan and I had breakfast omelettes) at Pere Antoine's the night we arrived, grateful for its location just a few steps away from our hotel. And Voila lured us in to lunch on Friday, with its fried shrimp sandwich special. I shouldn't have eaten the bread, but it was too yummy. And the shrimp was perhaps the best fried shrimp I've ever had!Our big dinner Friday night was at Tujague's on Decatur, just a block away from the hotel. The food there was terrific, too, but it was too dark to take a good picture. It is a charming little place, even without the nice window/doors. But, then, Decatur is a busy traffic street and bringing that atmosphere into the place wouldn't be as agreeable as it is on the quieter Quarter rues.
Enough about the food....although it's hard to say too much about it. Bottom line was, we weren't disappointed, and we had very high expectations going in! Even the box lunches the Historical Society served at the World War II Museum on Saturday were scrumptious—how many places
can offer that kind of cuisine?!Our hotel was the wonderfully atmospheric Place D'Armes, right on the Square. What a great location! [Its name comes from the fact that another name for Jackson Square is the Place d'Armes. In San Antonio our former Plaza de Armas is now Main Plaza. Perhaps we really do live in more peaceful times, even though it doesn't always seem that way?] Anyway, here is the entranceway to the hotel's lobby, pictured on the right.
We had lots of fun just ambling around the Quarter, mostly on its quieter streets like the ones around our hotel. Although we did make it over to the Rue Bourbon for a quick visit (Steve spent more time there than his older and more sedate sisters, and has more authentic New Orleans stories to tell as a result.) There were all kinds of funky shops and upscale galleries at street level. Like the one on the left featuring the very popular and almost ubiquitous blue dog image. But looking up you see such lovely domestic architecture as this:
We did venture away from the Quarter a bit, but never far enough to need our car, which rested
up from its long trip in the hotel garage the whole time we were there. Part of our transportation needs were met by streetcars. On the left you can see one of the stops in the Garden District, where 
we made a brief excursion Friday afternoon.On the right is a glimpse down the main drag of the city, Canal Street, which we had to cross whenever we made the short journey from our lodgings in the Quarter to the neighborhood of the World War II Museum and our Marauder Men colleagues. The tracks you see serve another streetcar line.
We walked between the venues most of the time, which was exercise very much called for, given our larger-than-usual caloric intake during the weekend. But we also rode streetcars (on yet another line) back and forth a few times. It was fun, plus it gave us a chance to see more of the Old Man River himself, as in this photo taken on the embankment near our streetcar stop. Wish we'd had time to take a boat ride!
You can see more pictures of our adventures on Steve's blog. And I'll have some more for you in a couple of days, highlighting our trip to a Garden District cemetery.
