What To Do During a Week in New Orleans.

Six plus six equals twelve and there are twelve months in a year.  You should spend part of one of those twelve months in New Orleans.  You should spend a week.  A week is the perfect amount of time to spend in New Orleans.  A week in New Orleans will evaporate your cares and get your head screwed on straight.

Greetings from New Orleans.

A Week in New Orleans heals all wounds.

Even if you're not hurting, a week in New Orleans will make you feel better.  No one ever says their visit to New Orleans is too long. The longer you stay, the more you'll realize how much more there is to discover in this wonderful city we call home.  There are angels in the details.

Where Bayou Road crosses Bell Street, New Orleans, LA.

I live here.  What would I do with a week in New Orleans?  Here is what I did on Monday:

This past Monday, I had lunch at Café Minh after I went to the Mid-City Branch of the New Orleans Public Library across the street.  

Before I went to the Library, I went to Meyer the Hatter to see what new straw hats had arrived from Dobbs in the most recent shipment.

After lunch, I went to see the new exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art at the end of Esplanade Avenue, about a mile's picturesque stroll from La Belle Esplanade.  I lingered in the permanent collection's gallery dedicated to Romanticism and Symbolism.  

Then, Frau Schmitt and I went to the movies.  We saw Downton Abbey.  Frau Schmitt, who is the better half of this operation knows all about Downton Abbey.  I didn't know anything about it when I was buying the popcorn.  I really enjoyed the film.  I am now a confirmed Downton Abbey fan.  The movie was playing at The Broad Theater, around the corner from our inn.  How many places do you know that can say, "We have a new movie theater in our neighborhood."  New Orleans is like that.

One day in New Orleans contains the stuff from which lifetime good memories are made.  Imagine a week in this magical city.  Better yet, don't imagine it, visit New Orleans for a week.  You won't regret it.  If you are bored in New Orleans, you should see a doctor.

This house is known as The House on Bayou Road.

A word from our sponsor:  If you are going to spend a week in New Orleans, we can think of no better place to stay than La Belle Esplanade.  Ranked the #1 small hotel in New Orleans since April 2014, and #2 in the United States----AND, #16 in the world.    Check out our website and make a reservation.  La Belle only has five suites so plan ahead and choose wisely.  

The Best Things In New Orleans Are Free.

The best things in New Orleans are free.  New Orleans is the greatest free show on earth, and not just during Mardi Gras season.  Every New Orleans day is a parade of sweet humanity in all its shapes and guises.  Get your good self down to New Orleans and you'll know what it means to fall in love with New Orleans.  Everything rhymes in Orleans parish.

Your humble narrator is a dreamy-eyed poet but he doesn't know it.

The best things in life are free.  The best things in New Orleans are free.  Life is what you make it.  Love cannot be bartered or sold in  installments.  Real love, true love, passion, is either all out or it is all in.  You can lust for New Orleans but it takes commitment and deep familiarity to truly fall deeply in love with this wonderful city we call home.  

In a New Orleans state of mind you'll still have to pay for a bed and roof over your head.  You'll still have to pay for meals.  Those are good things, true, but the best things in New Orleans are free.  The whole city of New Orleans is a factory of craftspeople who spend all their days and nights making the stuff of good memories.  The cure to a hard heart is to dream a New Orleans dream.

The sitting room in the Clio Suite at La Belle Esplanade.

The best things in New Orleans are free.  Who can put a price on a week that will make you smile for the rest of your life?  The first visit is only an appetizer.  The more time you spend in New Orleans, the more you'll find yourself wanting more.  New Orleans is that kind of a city.  You should see for yourself.  The best things in New Orleans are free-----the best things in New Orleans are everywhere here.  When you have open eyes and an open heart, New Orleans will treat you right.

Now a word from our sponsor:  

In a city full of pleasant surprises, you can't get caught up in FOMO.  Follow your instinct.  Use your better intuition when you are in New Orleans.  Stay at La Belle Esplanade a small artisanal hotel on one of the most beautiful streets in the city.  Centrally located to tourist destinations but in the real city, the most beautiful part.  Visit New Orleans like you live here.  It'll be better than getting pass-out drunk on Bourbon Street.

When New Orleans calls, you have to answer.

La Belle Esplanade only has five luxury suites so we tend to fill up early.  Book today and make sure you can explore this wonderful city we call home like you belong here.  You do belong here.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade

Be Ready to Catch New Orleans' Spirit

Every New Orleans day is full of surprises.  Close your eyes and open your heart, you'll be ready to catch New Orleans spirit.  Just ask your humble narrator:

Your New Orleans Answer Man pondering the city's most difficult questions.

Once upon a time, this afternoon, actually, I went to the sculpture garden at the lakeside end of Esplanade Avenue.  It's only about a 20 minute walk from our front door.  

On the way, I stopped to watch a turtle eat a fish.  You can't blame me.  It's not like you see it every day, either.  You'd stop.

The Sidney and Wanda Besthoff Sculpture Garden is a thing of two halves.  They expanded it maybe two-three months ago.  The original sculpture garden is world class, it includes work from everyone you expect to see in a who's who of who's a sculptor.  The paths are well laid-out, compact and shady.  Turn a corner and, like in New Orleans itself, you won't know pleasant surprise to expect in the original sculpture garden.  

The new part is, well, newer.  It's not shady---I can't blame them for that.  The trees have to grow.  Because the park hasn't matured yet, the sight lines aren't exactly as inspiring as originally planned.  The new part of the sculpture garden does have its share of pleasant surprises. I am particular to one, the most traditional of the lot, naturally:

A Word From Our Sponsor:  There is more to New Orleans than you think you know.  Go to the French Quarter.  Go to Frenchmen Street.  Go to the WWII Museum.  La Belle Esplanade is not against any of these things.  We are in favor of them.

New Orleans, though is a big, interesting, vibrant city off the usual tourist radar.  When you want to explore and enjoy the authentic New Orleans, stay at La Belle Esplanade.  We live in a city full of happy surprises.

We only have five luxury suites so we tend to fill up early.  Book today and make sure you can explore this wonderful city we call home like you belong here.  You do belong here.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade

New Orleans Man of the Year.

I took a picture of some joker taking a picture of himself in a Time Magazine Man of the Year mirror.  This was in a men's room in some forgettable 24-hour bar.  He had his pants above his waist, buttoned, zippered, and belted when I took this photo.  I know what kinds of ideas people have of New Orleans.  New Orleans is a city that attracts sinners but it also a city that saints call home.  I am not saying I'm a saint.

Time Magazine's New Orleans Man of the Year.

There are no strangers in New Orleans.  There are only friends you haven't yet met.  Say hello.  You have a friend in New Orleans.  You belong here.  Good memories are made in New Orleans.  The best memories are made on Esplanade Avenue.

New Orleans inspires peace of heart.

No one has taken a census to compare the ratios of saints to sinners by neighborhoods in New Orleans.  Anecdotal evidence leads to the conclusion that they are all pretty much the same as much as they are very, very different.  A New Orleanian is only human, still.  New Orleans is the City Care Forgot.  Elysian Fields Avenue is in New Orleans.

Pinch a New Orleanian and he or she won't awaken from a dream.  They are already living it.  Each and every one is Person of the Year.

A Word From Our Sponsor:

If you want to visit New Orleans like you belong here----and you do belong here...  If you want to discover what it means to fall in love with the real New Orleans----I know where you should stay.

Nobody ever says their visit is too long.  Stay for as long as you can.  Nobody ever is bored in New Orleans.  If you are a sinner drawn to New Orleans' reputation or if you are a saint looking for a place to call home, we hope you consider staying at the #1 small hotel in the city: La Belle Esplanade.  We look forward to meeting you and sharing our part of the city with you.

Dead Duck in New Orleans City Park

You never know what you'll find in New Orleans.  Ours is a city of mystery and surprises.  Some of the surprises are pleasant.  Some of the surprises are unsettling and weird.  Welcome to the New Orleans state of mind.

I'm not gonna tell you about the time I found all the sacrificed animals in burlap sacks under trees in City Park.

I'm not gonna tell you about the time I encountered the Skunk Ape.

I'm not gonna tell you about the time I found the voodoo painting in  the crotch of a tree way back in City Park where nobody goes.  You can see that painting in our lobby.  

I'm not gonna tell you about the time I found the pile of pineapples where there was no good reason for pineapples to be there.

I'm not gonna tell you, today, about how I discovered the secret nudist colony in City Park.

I'm not gonna tell you about The Suicide Oak.

I'm not gonna tell you about the demon skull that was kicked into the bushes on the bank of Bayou Saint John.

I'm not gonna tell you about the time I was walking our dog on the back trails of the park and we met a crow that spoke French.  I'm not gonna tell you what that crow said to us before it flew away never to been seen again.

I'm not gonna tell you what it means to fall in love with New Orleans.  You'll find that out when you get here.

The great City of New Orleans is an onion of a place.  It contains layers under layers under layers under even more layers.  The more you peel off, the more you'll feel like crying over how beautifully mysterious it all is.

Instead, I am gonna tell you about the dead duck I found in City Park the other morning:

You never know what you'll find in New Orleans.  Some things will make you smile with equanimity and perfect understanding.  Some things will make you scratch your head in puzzlement.  Why?  Why does New Orleans exist?  Why is New Orleans the way it is?  Answer: Because God dictated it should be so.

Welcome to the New Orleans state of mind.  

--- If you are looking for someplace to stay when you visit New Orleans, I happen to be an innkeeper.  I run the #1-ranked place to stay in New Orleans (it's been #1 since April 2014 according to TripAdvisor).  You could do a lot worse.  Believe me.  You can choose a lot worse.  If you are looking to experience authentic New Orleans off the usual tourist radar, you know where to find us: in the bright orange house with blue shutters on Esplanade Avenue: La Belle Esplanade.

New Orleans Is Full of Sly Magic.

New Orleans is full of sly magic

There is a subtle perturbation in the atmosphere in New Orleans, a hum in the back of your ears, something below the substance that is more spirit than solid or liquid or gas.  There are occult powers at work along this city's sinews.  Phantasmagoria and fantasia, both and neither; terra firma, terra incognita and terra sigillata.  Is it any wonder that we love where we live?

When you spend enough time in New Orleans, you get a little discombobulated, then your balance readjusts, your tympanic membranes get used to the on-key pressure, and your pineal gland recalibrates.  Then, everything seems right in the world for long stretches along Esplanade Avenue, or St. Claude Avenue, or St. Bernard Avenue, or Carrolton Avenue, or Dumaine Street, or Washington Avenue, or along South Galvez Street, well, heck, along just about any byway or alleyway in the city, even Pirates' Alley or Duels Street.  Stay here long enough and you'll get spoiled for living anywhere else.

It really is magical in New Orleans.  Ask anyone.

It isn't voodoo, per se.  It's the voodoo that the people who live here do.  It's hard to put your finger on what makes New Orleans different, but you can always feel the pulse.  Everybody eats red beans on Mondays.  Why?  We don't ask that kind of question.  Like the Mardi Gras Indians, and everyone else who calls New Orleans home, we just do what we do because that's what we do.

'Nuff said about that.  Try to pin a butterfly down with enough description and words and, before you realize it, the butterfly has flown away.

Wanna see a rare picture of Frau Schmitt?

The nicest person you will ever meet

We went to see China Lights in City Park last night.  Wanna see a picture of a dragon?

Dragon over the oleander

China Lights is a big exhibit of silk sculptures lit from the inside.  We've seen the sculptures during the day and, let me tell you, they are much more impressive at night.  They're impressive during the day, but at night, they're magic.  It wasn't cheap to get in but it was worth the price of admission.  That's the way with most things.  Who dares to tally an epiphany's value?

Not quite the whole dragon

China Lights runs until May 1.  Even when nothing is happening in New Orleans, officially, something is always happening.  That's why we love where we live, off the record and off the radar and off the charts.  There is never a dull moment.  You can come to New Orleans any time of year, at any time of day, and you'll find something happening.  It's that kind of a place.  Its texture is rich and dense, full of portents and magic and dazzle and sizzle, fo'  shizzle.

If you don't know what it means to miss New Orleans, that's because you haven't spent enough time here, yet.  Stay for a couple days, embed yourself in the back streets outside the French Quarter, outside the Garden District, off the usual tourist maps and tourist traps.  You'll fall in love.  New Orleans is full of sly magic.

If you are considering a visit, we'd be pleased if you choose to make our colorful and humble inn your headquarters and base of operations for the duration of your stay.  We know a lot about New Orleans magic.  Reserve a suite early.  We are a small boutique operation that offers customized recommendations and accommodations.  You'll know what we mean when you get here.  Stay with us and you might just be spoiled from staying anywhere else.  It's not our vacation, though.  You can always stay down the street.  

I always say you should read an inn's blog to get an idea of what the place is about.  I can't say ours is always useful, in fact we've installed a poll to measure this somewhere toward the bottom of the column to your right.  Feel free to vote if you are so inclined.

New Orleans is a city full of sly magic.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where every morning is a curated New Orleans breakfast salon. 

Skunk Ape Sighting in New Orleans City Park

City Park in New Orleans, LA

There are parts of City Park that most visitors never see.  City Park in New Orleans is larger than Central Park in New York City.  If you are in New Orleans for a few days, you'll usually stay around the main entrance of the park, where the art museum is and the sculpture garden and Morning Call.  

Further back, there are all sorts of things that won't be of interest to the casual visitor.  One of these things is a forest off Harrison Avenue, which runs through the park.  I'm not going to give you directions because you probably won't go there anyway, so, why waste the typing?

I was in the forest the other day, which is threaded through with paths between underbrush and oak trees and cypress trees and pine trees and other trees I don't know the names of.  It can be kind of creepy back there, full of odd noises and unexplainable sensations.  Some people say there is voodoo back there and I've seen evidence of that.  Some people say the forest is haunted.  While I've felt the hair on my arms stand on end, I've never seen any direct evidence of ghosts.  

Yesterday, though, I did see a skunk ape.  At least, I thought it was a skunk ape.  I still think that.  It certainly smelled like a skunk ape.

Mysterious things in City Park, New Orleans, LA

I was walking along, minding my own business, as I approached a tree by a lagoon.

A cryptic tree in City Park, New Orleans, LA

Something stunk like rotten cabbage.  You know what I mean?  I walked under the tree and the smell just got stronger.  Woof!  After I was under the tree, I heard a rustling overhead.  When I turned, that's when I saw it: the skunk ape!

Skunk apes are more commonly seen in Florida.  In fact, there hasn't been a documented skunk ape sighting in Louisiana (arguably until now).  What has been sighted in Louisiana is the Honey Island Swamp Monster, which is similar to the a skunk ape.  

I'm no cryptozoologist, so I can't tell the difference between a Honey Island swamp monster and a skunk ape.  It would probably take DNA tests to determine what, exactly, I saw.  I'm leaning more toward skunk ape, though, and not just because it's more fun to say.  Looking at some old footage of the Honey Island Swamp Monster, I remain convinced that what I saw was a skunk ape.




Naturally, I didn't have my camera with me.  Isn't that always the way?  I did go back today to take a picture to serve as proof that I saw the skunk ape.  I provide it to you below...

This is a picture of the branch on which the skunk ape was sitting when I spotted him:

The skunk ape tree

When the skunk ape realized that I knew he was there, he waved.  Then, before I realized what was happening, he ran away.  There were no signs of him when I went back to the tree today.

You never know what you are going to see in New Orleans.

If you want to learn more, you know where to find me.  I'm at La Belle Esplanade, where every morning is a curated New Orleans breakfast salon.

Update, March 2017:  Please visit The New Orleans Oddtiarium to read about the good work The Odditarium has been doing trying to track down the skunk ape in City Park.  The Odditarium is a makeshift museum that has it's own website.  It's headquartered in our lobby at La Belle Esplanade.  Our small boutique inn really is the most interesting place to stay in America's most interesting city!  The skunk ape reports can be found by clicking the "Odditarium News" tab on The Odditarium's website.

À votre santé.

New Orleans Favorite Pickled Pigs Lips

From the folks at Farm Fresh Food Suppliers

I know what you're thinking.  You're wondering if this is a gag (in more ways than one).  The answer is no.  At any hour of the day or night, you can walk into your local New Orleans grocer and pick up a jar of pickled pigs lips.  People tell me they're delicious.  I haven't tried them, myself.

Let's back up a little bit:

100% authentic and world famous

I have no doubt that these pigs lips are authentic.  How famous they are, though, I'm unsure.  Locally famous?  Yes.  World famous?  I'm doubtful.  According to the Farm Fresh Food Suppliers website, you can buy them by the quart or by the gallon.  Let's repeat that last part:  You can buy them by the gallon.

Let's back up a bit further:

It's a tradition

On the Farm Fresh Food Suppliers homepage, there is this sentiment: "In Louisiana, great food is not only a meal...It's a tradition!"  That is certainly true.  People say this all the time.  They tell me the same thing, in one variation or another, several times a day.  It's not just the pigs lips, either.  It's everything that people eat in Louisiana and, believe me, they eat a lot of things in Louisiana that you don't eat where you're from.  The reverse if probably true.  I'm thinking about the lutefisk eaters in Minnesota.  Watch the video.  

Now, let's back up one last time.  Where is this pickled pigs lips ad located?

A New Orleans bus stop

The bus stop shelter at the corner of Esplanade Avenue and N. Broad Avenue is graced with a new advertisement for Pickled Pigs Lips.  It's a handsome and direct ad, don't you think?  It works.  I'm getting hungry just looking at it.

There are busses wrapped with pickled pigs lips ads.  They're really something to see.  The first time I passed one I drove my motor scooter up on the sidewalk.  

Frau Schmitt and I have known about pickled pigs lips since we moved to New Orleans.  If you're in our dining room and you look up on the shelf, you'll see a jar we've kept there since we opened the inn.  We don't open the jar but we do invite people to inspect it if they are interested.  We only bought a quart jar.  We don't see the need to have a gallon on hand.  Our jar is for conversational and educational purposes only.  

For conversational and educational purposes only

If you want to try pickled pigs lips while you are in New Orleans, you are welcome to buy yourself a jar (a quart or a gallon) but please, open it in the back garden to enjoy.  Better yet, take the jar to City Park with a nice bottle of white wine and have yourself a picnic.

As with boiled crawfish, we ask that you don't eat pickled pigs lips in the house.  Outside, however, we encourage you to smack your own lips with gusto as you go about your meal.

Bon apétit,
La Belle Esplanade
...the inn brimming with vim. TM

Some Real New Orleans History

The mantle in our Clio Suite

Remember, in New Orleans, it's usually the rule that most things are pronounced differently than you think, especially if street names or Greek Muses are involved. 

Who are the Nine Muses?  In alphabetical order: Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.

You think this is trivia, but everybody in New Orleans knows this and everyone in New Orleans pronounces those names differently than you probably just did if you are reading this blog aloud.

I recommend reading it aloud.  Rex Hollywood reads each installment aloud to his sweetheart.   I know this because Rex told me this himself and his sweetheart confirmed it.  It's no wonder people who know him (what, you don't know Rex Hollywood?) call him "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" behind his back.  I know this because one of Rex's pals stayed with us and he told me that in confidence.

Anyhow, one of our suites is called the Clio Suite because there is a statue of Clio in the park across the street from this suite's balcony. You, and most of the world that speaks English, French, German, Latin or Greek, Spanish, Albanian, Polish, Magyar, or Arabic, would naturally pronounce the name "klee-OH."  You would be wrong.  In New Orleans, it's pronounced "kl-EYE-oh."

Now you know.

A float in the Rex Den

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "Waitaminnit!  This is Mardi Gras season and you said you were going to post pictures of all the floats you saw in the krewe dens you visited two (2) weeks ago!"  

I did say that and I'm getting around to it, but I was looking through some old photos when I found something else that caught my fancy today.  Wanna see it?

A relic from another time

By the usual loopy narrative logic of this blog, let's travel back to one fateful night two years ago when I visited the men's room at The Steak Knife Restaurant on Harrison Avenue in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood.  It was strictly for professional reasons.  

Frau Schmitt and I have been to The Steak Knife twice.  We both like it, but with about 800 restaurants to choose from, we have to eat at as many as we can so that we can talk about them knowledgeably with our guests and make recommendations.  The Steak Knife is in a part of the city that few of our guests ever visit (though Alan and Shelly were there just the other day for ice cream --- to Harrison Avenue, not to The Steak Knife).  If you want to learn more about The Steak Knife, here's a link to their website, though, I have to admit, I don't think you're going to learn much there.  They apparently don't feel an urgent need to publicize.  After 40 years in business, they're probably right.   

Let me get to the point, already.  

This particular men's room is full of old pictures and magazine clippings and this one of the guy holding two fish caught my attention.  Here's the caption under the photo:

Big news about a big catch

In case you can't read the tiny print:

"TWO BLACK BASS, both slightly over two pounds, were caught the other day in a back lagoon at City Park by Jack Crowley, 2422 Laharpe.  The fish were taken on a plug casting rod.  City Park's fishing season closes for two months, beginning Monday."

Our inn is located at 2216 Esplanade Avenue.  2422 Laharpe Street is just four blocks away from where we live.  You can stroll over and take a picture of Mr. Crowley's house if you want to.  I just might do that later this week even though Jack doesn't live there anymore.

Coincidentally, I was walking our dog around a back lagoon this morning and two gentlemen were fishing there, in two different locations.  I asked one of them if he had had any luck.  He said he had just hooked a bass and he showed it to me.  He was a kindly looking, elderly gent.  It wasn't Jack.  I know Jack.

You never know what you'll find as you wander the byways and restrooms in New Orleans.

And, on that note, we must conclude.

Frau Schmitt's mother-in-law is coming to visit.  If installments don't come as regularly as we've recently become accustomed, you can't blame my mother.  Blame it on Mardi Gras.  The whole city shuts down during Mardi Gras.  Though Mardi Gras is next Tuesday, the real serious parading begins today and it's not going to stop until Lent.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where the rest comes easy.

Don't Get Shortchanged in New Orleans.

Ethel Blanchard in front of the New Orleans Museum of Art

Ethel Blanchard visited New Orleans but she didn't stay at La Belle Esplanade.  When you stay with us, we'll tell you what's open and what's not.  Ethel Blanchard had planned her whole stay to visit the New Orleans Museum of Art and she saved the best of her vacation for last.  Today, Monday, she wanted to go to the New Orleans Museum of Art to see the exhibition of woodcarvings by Pierre Joseph Landry.  

Nobody at her hotel, not the front desk staff, not the concierge, not the cleaning lady, not the bellhop, not the doorman, not the manager, told Ethel Blanchard that the art museum in New Orleans is closed on Mondays.  She's been in town for a week.  Nice work, Marriott.  

If she had stayed at the Hilton, it might have been different, but I'm not really in a position to say.  I have my doubts.  All I know for certain is that when our guests tell us what they are interested in doing, we listen, and we recommend on how best to do what they want to do.  It isn't magic and it isn't voodoo.  It's about being a good host.

I ran into Ethel while she was walking dejectedly out of City Park, where the art museum is located.  It's at the end of our street.  "I told the people at the hotel I wanted to see this exhibit and nobody said a word about the museum being closed on Mondays," she told me with tears in her eyes.

To rub salt in the wound, she made her lodgings reservation through Expedia, paying additional "taxes and fees" than she would have if she made the reservation through the hotel's website directly.  Don't believe all the hype from the online travel agents and their best price guarantees.  Go directly to the hotel's (or the bed and breakfast's) website.  We don't list our suites on Expedia or Booking.com anymore.  If you want to stay with us, you'll have to make a reservation through labelleesplanade.com.  Check it out.

Wanna know what's nice about staying at La Belle Esplanade?  We don't add 13% hotel and sales tax on top of the bill.  The price is the price.  It's a refreshing way to do business.

Anyhow, Pierre Joseph Landry fought in the Battle of New Orleans under General Andrew Jackson.  Later in life, after a career as a successful sugar planter, he became a sculptor, whittling wood into allegorical scenes.  His works are amazing and they've been collected at the New Orleans Museum of Art for a show that runs October 16, 2015 until March 20, 2016.

Frau Schmitt and I went to the exhibit.  What a great show.  Mr. Landry was self taught and very talented.  He reminded us of two innkeepers we know.  We spent at least an hour looking at his work.  It was fascinating.  I didn't have my camera with me so I don't have any pictures of the work itself.  Instead, let's break up the narrative with a picture of something else.

Macaroons!

For the rest of this installment, I'm going to call the New Orleans Museum of Art by the acronym by which it's better known: NOMA.  

NOMA has an excellent permanent collection.  It's a little of this and a little of that.  There are always exhibits rotating through its galleries.  Currently, besides the woodcarvings of Pierre Joseph Landry, there is an exhibit of Noh masks made to resemble famous women in the Western canon of old master paintings, and views painted of the French Quarter in the early years of the 20th century. There is also a room where a man is typing on a typewriter.  I didn't pay much attention to this bit of performance art.  If I want to see a man typing, I can just look in the mirror.

For eight bucks, you're welcome to come over and watch me write this blog.  No refunds.

The black and white version

People ask us where to eat when they are in City Park.  There is always Morning Call, and you can't go wrong there for café-au-lait and beignets, but if you are looking for a real meal, we suggest Café Noma.  

Café Noma isn't your typical museum snack bar.  It's a real restaurant and the food is very good.  The atmosphere is relaxing and the view out the windows of City Park is stunning.  Don't think of Café Noma as a place to duck into when it's raining and don't think of it as a meal of last resort.  Frau Schmitt and I go there for lunch when we go to the museum.  We make an outing of it.  We've never been disappointed.

You don't need to go through the museum to eat at Café Noma.  If you tell the ladies at the front desk that you're just there for lunch, they'll let you through without paying the museum's admission.  Don't take advantage of this.  There is also a side entrance on the downtown side of the museum building.

If you are looking for lodgings run by professional hosts who enjoy sharing everything they know about New Orleans, think about staying at La Belle Esplanade.  We'll be happy to meet you and if something is closed on the day you want to go, we'll advise you to rearrange your plans so that you'll be able to see the things you want to see, and avoid the things you want to avoid.  Good memories are made on Esplanade Avenue.

We are looking forward to meeting Ethel Blanchard again, this time when she stays with us.  

Until that day,
À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Words about New Orleans.

La belle de l'Avenue d'Esplanade

In the end, it's all words, words words.  In Italian, "Alla fine, si tart di tutti le parole."  It's true.  Ce sera sera.  As the Creole maw-maws say when they're granddaughters come home after a big date telling their grandmothers they're in love, the maw-maws say, "En fin de compte, il best tour les mots."  C'est vrai.    

Thus, today's soundtrack:


Alain Delon could talk, but Dalida... Dalida!  That Dalida, she had quite a set of pipes.

Whatever I say, it's all just gonna be words in the end.  All just words, words, words.  So, what might those words be?

Here's one for you: Prosopagnosia.  An innkeeper with prosopagnosia can get along, but it's going to make his or her job tougher, I can tell you that.  I'm not saying that either your humble narrator nor Frau Schmitt can be described as prosopagnosiac.  We aren't.  At least not as far as I can tell.  Some neuroscientists will tell you that when a person is born with a condition, he or she will compensate for it through other ways---like the belief that blind people have a heightened sense of smell.  I'm not making this up.  We have neuroscientists stay with us when they have a convention in town.  

The Sniffer by Enrique Alférez

New Orleans smells like no place else.  Whether it's the mules in the French Quarter, among other things in the French Quarter, or the smell of a roux cooking up in kitchens in all the downtown neighborhoods, or the whiff of crawfish boil on weekends, no place smells like New Orleans.  No, no place, nowhere, no how.  I guarantee.  


I think it was in our last installment that I featured two sculptures by Enrique Alférez on Poydras Street.  If it wasn't the last installment it was the one after that.  I'm so lackadaisical in my research that I won't go back and read my own blog.  ...and yet, I expect you to.  

Serendipity being something that informs everything that happens in New Orleans, it turns out that there is a new sculpture garden opening up in City Park, in the Botanical Gardens in particular.  This new garden will be full of statues made by our local hero and one of my personal favorite sculptors, Enrique Alférez.  I had no idea until I read it in the newspaper yesterday.  Naturally, I'm tickled pink, which is a phrase I've learned a southern gentleman can say in public without blushing.

New Orleans Botanical Gardens

There is a nice exhibit of sculpture at the New Orleans Museum of Art for the next couple of months.  You can see it here: https://noma.org/exhibitions.  I would post the link directly so that you could just click on it, but their server is down so I just get a page that tells me that NOMA's server is down.  That's the way things work in New Orleans sometimes.  You don't do things virtually or plan ahead.  You just show up and make the best of what you find.  It's always better that way.

Sometimes, our guests go someplace, like to the Backstreet Cultural Center, and it will be closed even if their website says they should have been open.  That's usually okay. "We met somebody sitting on the porch three houses down and he told us about it and then his daughter walked us around the neighborhood and she told us to go to L'il Dizzy's for lunch, which we did, and we had the best gumbo and jambalaya."

That's how things work in New Orleans.  Don't overplan.  The city will provide what it wants you to enjoy.

Somebody opened their front shutters on Esplanade Avenue the other morning and somebody else took a picture.

You can't be afraid of color

Jazz in the Park happens tomorrow.  I wonder what we missed last week?



Kermit Ruffins!!!!  Waitaminnit!  That was last season!

I think tomorrow is the last session of Jazz in the Park for this season.  This weekend is Voodoo Fest up in City Park, and, it's also Hallowe'en.  It's gonna be a magical weekend in New Orleans.  What else would it be?  It's been a magical week.  Isn't it always?

I promise, this won't be the last session of this blog.  Jazz.

À votre santé, 
La Belle Esplanade, a boutique New Orleans bed and breakfast inn.
Where quality is our nature.

New Orleans will stick in your mind.

Dooky Chase's Restaurant since 1941

Awright, I'm just going to crank out an installment on autopilot if you don't mind.  Let's see how this winds out.  Yo.

Today's soundtrack is provided courtesy of Taco.  Prepare yourself for some difficult listening:


I'm not watching the video as I write this.  Once was enough.  I am listening to the song play in another window as I go along here.  Again, I'm treating you to another big radio treat from when I was a much younger humble narrator.  Based on my research, Puttin' on the Ritz by Taco, while a top ten hit nationally, never cracked the top 50 in the New Orleans market.  New Orleanians have better taste. 

That Taco is pretty creepy looking, isn't he?  Top ten hit.

We like to send people who stay with us to Santa Fe, a Creole Southwestern restaurant up the street from us, about a 15-20 minute walk away on a very beautiful street.  Esplanade Avenue is the second-most beautiful street in New Orleans.  

Santa Fe is our go-to place to eat out when Frau Schmitt and I can't agree on somewhere else.  It is Creole Southwestern food.  What does that mean?  They have tacos and burritos, but they incorporate a lot of crawfish and seafood.  It's the crawfish and seafood that make it Creole.  The owner is Portuguese, so take a close look at the specials.  If you still have room for desert after your meal, Santa Fe has the best Tres Leches Cake in the city, hands down.  They also serve the second best sangria in the city.

Want a hot tip?  If you have an appetite, order the Chicken Maximillian at Santa Fe.  You won't regret it.

And, so, what this all boils down to is the fact that we have a restaurant on our street that serves crawfish tacos and this fact is really the only justification that I can muster to include an old dated video by a musician named Taco from over 30 years ago.  I know.  I'm shameless.  Even I don't want my MTV.

Professional blog writers will tell you to include five links to outside websites in every post for search engine optimization.  I don't normally pay attention, but maybe, today, since I'm just running on auto-pilot anyway, that's what I'll do.  Old habits die hard.  I'm not promising anything.  You can count the links as we go along.  They're gonna be real mind-stickers, I'm sure.

Whenever I think of Taco in the 1980s, I think of Falco.  Their names rhyme and one was really pretty much as good as the other.  Fasten your seat belts, folks, this is going to be a painful ride.  This next video is much better than the official Falco version that tormented those of us alive in the 80s.  The footage comes from an Academy Award nominated movie.  It wasn't The Princess and the Frog.

I sometimes think of Falco when I'm walking through City Park which is on the lakeside end of Esplanade Avenue, just past Beauregard Circle, which is just over the bridge that spans Bayou St. John.  I think about Falco because there are plenty of falcons that fly on the sly over the empty spaces in City Park.  

City Park is a well-manicured urban oasis, with plenty to see and do.  It is very romantic up there.  But, there are also plenty of wild places in City Park, places that most casual visitors don't see.  Some parts of New Orleans' City Park, which is larger than Central Park in New York City, are veritably forest.  Here there be hawks.  Here there be falcons.

There is a falconry club that meets on Saturday mornings in the middle of one of the abandoned golf courses in City Park.  It's pretty informal and I don't think they have a permit.  The members just show up with leather jerkins and gauntlets and hooded falcons, then they let a rabbit loose in the field and they have their sport.  The more I think about it, the less I think they have official permission to do this.  I expect that the City Park Board of Directors would worry about bad publicity from PETA.  You never know what you'll find in the out-of-the-way niches of New Orleans.

Wille Mae's Scotch House, corner of St. Ann and N. Tonti Streets

Some people like to come to New Orleans and go all high hat.  It's really more of a casual city.  Unless you're wearing a seersucker suit, it's not a suit and tie kind of a city.  With nine and a half million tourists a year, how many of them do you think pack a suit and tie?  Very few who stay with us, I can tell you that.

When I lived in New England, I wore a three-piece suit every day---bespoke.  Since moving to New Orleans, five years ago, I rarely go formal.  There just isn't any need.  If you are wearing a Saints jersey, you can go anywhere.  A New Orleans Saints jersey is carte blanche.  People wear them for their court appearances to influence the jury in their favor.

I was going to end this installment with a clip of Puttin' on the Ritz from the original 1930 movie of the same name starring Fred Astaire.  The sound quality was bad so, instead, I'm offering up a remix version.  Some people think I'm a purist and that I don't like anything new or remade.  That isn't necessarily true.  I live in a city that is old and being remade as you read this, trying to keep what is best about New Orleans and building off that while trying to stay true to the city's spirit and genius.  New Orleans has a tourist-based economy, but it isn't Disneyland.  It is something else, altogether.  It is something hard to describe.


You can put on the Ritz, or you can dance like nobody is watching.  You can stay at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Canal Street, or you can stay at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast on Esplanade Avenue.    Either is delightful in it's own way for different reasons which are very much the same.  Both places aim to delight you and to introduce you to a magical city we all call home.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.


P.S.  Above, I mentioned that our links today would be real mind-stickers.  What did I mean by that exactly?  I meant they should stick in your mind like a girl who keeps her shape in good shape with Tab.