Our CEO's New Orleans bed and breakfast blog

Esplanade Avenue, 1905

There is nothing worse than a dead blog.  After that, there is nothing worse than a blog written with search engine optimization (SEO) and google rankings in mind.  There is nothing more boring than a bland blog.  Reading a bland blog is like staying in a chain hotel; there are no delightful surprises.  Needless to say, this blog is written without a whit of SEO sensibility.

A shadow on Esplanade Avenue

It is always nice when people tell me they read the blog before they visit New Orleans.  So far the number is up to five and my statistics confirm this.  Like the breakfast we serve, we strive to keep our blog fresh.  The only thing associated with La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast that ever came out of a can is bright paint.  Every room is a different color.

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

Your humble narrator doesn't read a lot of blogs.  It probably shows.  It is always nice when people say that they enjoy reading this blog, but I don't know how much it will prepare you for your visit.  Remember how it felt to see New Orleans in the flesh for the first time?  If you haven't been here, it was thrilling.

As innkeepers, we live in New Orleans, in a real neighborhood.  We can't say that we know the city like we know each other's moods, but we have lived here for four years next month.  It is long enough to still be tourists in a city where you never know what is around the next corner.

When you stay in a big chain hotel, or even a little hotel, you are a customer.  When you stay in a New Orleans bed and breakfast, you are a guest.  There are over 50 New Orleans bed and breakfasts.  When you read this blog, you learn about what's going on in our neighborhood, close to home.  We try to give you a glimpse of what it is like to live here.  Ours is only the most slender sliver of muffaletta.  

Tammie, the housekeeper

Tammie, the housekeeper, was looking over my shoulder as I was writing the above.  I was sitting at the desk in the lobby sharpening my pelican quill pen between paragraphs.  She took a peek as the ink was drying.  "This blog is boring," she said.  "It's always says the same thing.  It's like those H.P. Lovecraft books you keep in the Clio Suite."

H.P. Lovecraft

Tammie, the housekeeper, handed me my eyeglasses that I had left in La France Suite.  I am nearsighted, so I don't need my glasses to write our blog.  "New Orleans is great.  We live in a nice part of town.  Good things happen on Esplanade Avenue. By the way, you can stay at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast...," Tammie read over my shoulder.

I asked if she had something else to do.  "I've got to make the bed in La France Suite," she said, patting the sheets draped over her arm.  "A votre sante," she said over her shoulder.

La France Suite

Your humble narrator doesn't spend a lot of time reading other bed and breakfast blogs.  From my front porch, I can see six other innkeepers.  We're neighbors.  We wave to each other.

Frau Schmitt doesn't read any other bed and breakfast blogs, either.  "I'll bet yours is like nobody else's," she tells me.  She is usually right about these things.  "I have to admit though, sometimes, it rambles."  It is a labor of love.  

Good things happen on Esplanade Avenue.

A statue on Esplanade Avenue

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.