What will you see in New Orleans?

View from the field in the Superdome

As I write this, our blog got 249 readers today.  Small beer, to be sure, but it almost sets a record for people checking in on what's going on in our small corner of New Orleans.  What drew people to read the wonderful prose your humble narrator offers up once or twice a week?  I don't know.  There's no accounting for taste.  So what do you want to know about?

Let's start out with a disappointment.

Dixie Beer sign

Dixie Beer is a New Orleans original.  The original brewery was on Tulane Avenue, a few blocks uptown from our house.  Since Katrina, it's been abandoned and the property was taken by the VA to build a big new VA hospital.  The good news is that the big brewery building is going to be incorporated into the hospital campus instead of being torn down as originally planned.  The other good news is that you can still buy a six pack of Dixie at most local grocers.  The bad news is that it's brewed in Milwaukee.  At least it's still around.

The Falstaff brewery building is still around, too.  It's apartments now.  I've posted pictures of it before so I won't waste your time doing it again.  You can trawl through the archives if you're so inclined.  That will be good for traffic.  Regal was another big local brew.  That brewery was torn down to build the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street.  The fourth local beer was Jax.  The Jax Brewery is also still standing, a few blocks uptown of Jackson Square in the French Quarter.  It's a shopping mall filled with sad shops and cell phone accessory kiosks.  Have a good time.

Not everything is forlorn in New Orleans, though it sometimes looks that way.  The reverse is true.  It's a vibrant and happy place.  Everyone is friendly.  We find this to be true, but we've lived here long enough to pass as natives.  Our guests tell us the same thing, even if they have a foreign accent, like from the UK or Switzerland or Iowa or Australia or Malaysia or Lebanon or Kenya or Cuba.  Everyone they meet is nice and they swap stories and if our guests are lost the people who live here give them directions and they also often give them something to drink on a hot day, or shelter if its raining.  It's that kind of a city.

La France Suite balcony

I was talking to someone who will remain nameless and she suggested that I email our previous guests to let them know what's going on at the inn and what specials we're offering.  I don't know about you, but I don't like to find a lot of spam email in my inbox trying to sell me things.  YMMV.  She was the kind of person who said LOL instead of laughing.  It wasn't endearing.

I'm toying with the idea of an email newsletter, but I figure that anyone who is really interested in keeping up with La Belle Esplande, or with la dolce vita, will read this blog.  If not, well, they don't know what they're missing and it isn't much anyway.  Ignorance is bliss.  That's always been my usual modus operandi.  

This woman who will remain nameless asked me if we blog about the inn.  Well, sort of, I said.  "Do you post recipes and top ten lists?  They generate a lot of traffic and interest."  Well, no, we don't do that.  I just write about whatever I write about.  It could be anything or nothing.  Mostly it's a smidge more than nothing and a bit less than interesting.  I hope you've read this far... all 249 of you today.

A $250 a night hotel room.  Not La Belle Esplanade

It's the La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast blog (just look at the header) so I feel kind of obligated to talk about La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast fairly frequently.  We're in New Orleans, so I feel obligated to talk about New Orleans.  Everyone is interested in what's happening in New Orleans.  It's like magic here.  If you leave disappointed, you'd better check your pulse to make sure it's still beating.

What other material do we cover?  This.  That.  Whatnot.  The pictures sometimes match up with the words in some way.  I take the pictures with my phone.  I make it all up as I go along.  We do the same thing at breakfast when we're talking with guests.  Like the people who live here, we live here, so we're open to serendipitous twists.  The conversation can go any which way.  It makes things interesting, even during the pregnant pauses.  It's very romantic where we live.  Good memories are made here.

If you're looking for a colorful bed and breakfast, I have a suggestion.  What's this blog about again?  Ah, yes!  It's about the 2nd-most beautiful street in New Orleans: Esplanade Avenue.  Ours is a marvelous neighborhood.  It's missing something, though.  It's missing you.

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.