Walking in New Orleans

We're the house in the middle

Thirty years ago, for those old enough to remember, nobody wanted to live in a city.  Cities were dirty, decaying, and full of criminal activity.  That was the common understanding: the city was unsafe.  

Frau Schmitt grew up in Hamburg, Germany.  Like many Europeans, she doesn't have an aversion to city life.  I grew up on the New York side of Connecticut, spending many, many hours in New York City.  Because of that, I have always been more an urban animal than a country mouse, though I'm still somewhat trusting and naive.  

When people come to visit us, some of them are a bit hesitant about walking around our fair city.  I suspect they have a bit of that leftover urban paranoia in them.  

Some people just plain come from places where walking anywhere past your mailbox is problematic, so the concept of walking down the street to get somewhere is a tad alien.  People from big dense cities, like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and even cities Milwaukee, Washington, Baltimore, or Charleston, find New Orleans a very pleasant surprise.

I never dreamed I would someday live in a place that looks like New Orleans.  Frau Schmitt says she has never been anyplace like it.  Everyone says that if they aren't from here.  It is a dense urban landscape full of details.  There is crime, of course, but everyone is exceedingly friendly.  It takes some getting used to, but only in a good way.

A close up view

Everyone who visits New Orleans is charmed.  The city casts its spell.  Few people ask me if it is safe in the French Quarter, but that's where most of the petty crimes are committed against tourists.  Let me throw out a eyeball estimate after reading the NOPD reports: 70%, with another 20% in the Central Business District (CBD)?  You are more likely to get your wallet stolen on Bourbon Street than on Esplanade Avenue by a three-digit factor, yet plenty of people look up and down our peaceful oak-lined street and ask me, "Is it safe here?"

Frau Schmitt and I have gotten used to it.  Frau Schmitt likes to say, "It depends on what you mean by safe.  If you are feel unsafe, then you should follow your instinct.  We don't feel unsafe here, but we live here and walk around the neighborhood all hours of the day and night.  If you don't feel safe walking, you should take a cab, especially if you don't feel safe walking at night in a strange city."

She gives good advice, as she usually does.  I don't discourage people from taking a cab the twelve blocks to the French Quarter, but I don't really see the point.  We live on such a beautiful street that I enjoy walking and getting to experience it in the round, instead of through the window in a smelly cab.  To each his or her own, of course.

When you walk in New Orleans, you make all sorts of discoveries. The city is so rich in incident that it makes most other places seem dull.  There are streets so beautiful they will make you tear up in wonder, and their are streets so forlorn that you will wonder in schadenfreude.  Life runs the gamut in New Orleans.

Another angle.  Our inn is in the middle.

Our inn is 12 blocks from the French Quarter.  Some people think that's too far.  Again, to each his or her own.  If all you want to do is be in the French Quarter, you should book a room there so that you won't have to leave.  If you are coming to visit New Orleans instead of just the Vieux Carre, you should probably stay a little outside the Quarter, say about 12 blocks.  It is close enough to the action, but in the real city, the part that everybody else lives in.  

We live here for a reason.  It is very, very nice.

A common theme in some of our reviews, and those of the other boutique bed and breakfast inns in our neighborhood is that guests are happy they chose a little outside the tourist zone.  They come to appreciate that New Orleans is more than a bunch of out-of-towners throwing and catching beads out of season.  People don't fall down and sleep on the streets in every part of town.  The city, by and large, is picturesque and safe.  They wouldn't know that if they stayed only in the French Quarter.

A perfectly good place to stay

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.