La France Suite (Update)

Sitting room in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

I'm sure I've mentioned that the inn is an ever-evolving work-in-progress.  It's time for me to update our suite descriptions.  Not much has changed over the last year-and-a-half, but enough noteworthy things have happened that it's time to start afresh.  As Tammie the Housekeeper told me the other day while she was handing me my eyeglasses, "You and Frau Schmitt really seem to be hitting your stride in this innkeeping business."  

Tammie the Housekeeper

She held my glasses up to the light.  "How do you even see through these things?" she asked.  I see well enough.  That's why I get to describe the rooms on our blog.

Bedroom in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

La France Suite is the two rooms in the back of the house, one room after another.  It has its own private bathroom equipped with an antique claw foot tub perfect for a deeply relaxing soak.  It has a mounted shower head and curtains so that you can scrub off the modern way, if you so choose. 

Sitting room in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

The sitting room has a fainting couch, a velveteen-upholstered reading chair, a marble-topped table we found on the street and carried across New Orleans on our scooters,  a marble-topped dressing table, and a wardrobe that the cabinetmaker signed inside.  There is a statue of Joan of Arc on the mantle, and there is a slender collection of books pertaining to France that one of us finds interesting.

Bedroom in La France Suite, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

I don't saturate these colors after I take the pictures.  The camera doesn't lie.  The bedroom has a plantation-sized antique bed.  Plantation-size is B&B talk for full, one size down from a queen bed.  It's an antique.  Nobody can complain about sleeping in a bed made like this.  They don't make them like this anymore.

There is also a refrigerator stocked with a little wine, beer, soda, juice and water.  Help yourself.  If you need anything else, there's a corner grocery store two blocks down Esplanade Avenue toward the French Quarter.  There is a writing desk, television, free wifi, a bust of Napoleon, and there's a dresser dating from 1884.  There is also more Joan of Arc memorabilia.  She's the patron saint of Orleans, France, and she's pretty well respected in New Orleans, too.  

View from La France Suite balcony, La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast 

The balcony is an open gallery along the lakeside that ends in a little sitting area with a cafe table and two chairs.  The sun sets in this direction.  You can see the Superdome behind the telephone pole, and you can see it better at night, when it's lit up.  It's about two miles away as the pelican flies.  We're close enough to everything on our shady city street, but we're also far enough away.  

The corrugated metal building facing Barracks Street on the lot next door is Mr. Bourne's Muffler Shop.  He's been open at this location every day, except Sundays and Tuesdays, for more than 42 years.  The shop is an institution, like Mr. Bourne, himself.

There aren't (m)any people who still speak French in New Orleans, but Frau Schmitt is taking lessons.  We get to welcome a lot of international guests.  As for myself, I only know the three words I'm always thinking when I walk into this suite: Vive la France!

If you're thinking about going to Jaques-Imo's, well, this is more Jacobin.  Laissez les bon temps rouler!

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.