Hello New Orleans

I haven't been to Heaven but I suspect that living in New Orleans is a little, teensy-weensy, tiny, picayune bit like being in Heaven.  People who live in New Orleans love it here.  There is nowhere else like it.  Hello, New Orleans, you are the city I've been waiting for.

This is what houses look like in New Orleans.

New Orleans is its own world.  Hello, New Orleans!  New Orleans is calling you.

Spend a day in New Orleans and you'll be disoriented.  Spend a week in New Orleans and you'll be changed for life in the best ways.  Hello, New Orleans!  If you want to be the best that you can be, New Orleans is here to help you.  Let the New Orleans state of mind be your guide.

A dignified lion statue in City Park, New Orleans.

There is nothing wrong with being lonely.  We are all our own islands.  

No one need be alone in New Orleans.  This is a city that welcomes the stranger, accepts the eccentric, celebrates the individual, and invites everyone into the conversation.  To be in love with New Orleans is to know that you belong.  It doesn't matter what kind of a nut you are.  Welcome to the club.  Hello, New Orleans!

If you want to get your taste of the real New Orleans and the authentic New Orleans state of mind, he-e-e-e-ere's-s-s-s...

A word from our sponsor: 

La Belle Esplanade is a small artisanal hotel located on a beautiful historic street in New Orleans, close to the tourist must-sees, but also in it's own unique neighborhood, where New Orleanians live.  Visit New Orleans like you belong here.  

Good memories are made in New Orleans.  The best, most personalized real memories are made at La Belle Esplanade.  You have two friends, at least, on Esplanade Avenue.  Visit New Orleans like a New Orleanian.

Ranked the #1 place to stay in New Orleans since April 2014.

  

Lonely Planet's Top Pick for Tremé

The three most colorful houses on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans, LA

I've been shopping for new eyeglasses.  I'm nearsighted, which means I do not wear glasses to read, but I do wear them to drive or, even, to walk around town in order to see what I'm walking towards.  While I like surprises, I don't like walking up to a McDonald's drive-thru on Canal Street when I think I'm going to Dis and Dem on Banks Street.

Dis and Dem on Banks Street, New Orleans, LA

At Art & Eyes, a rather pricey but very tasteful optical shop on Magazine Street, Meredith was showing me frames and she kept showing me black frames and brown frames and dark blue frames.  I said, "I'm not afraid of color.  Do you know the three colorful houses on Esplanade Avenue between Broad and Claiborne Avenues?"  Meredith said, "You mean on the uptown side of the 2200 block?"  I said, "Yes."  She said, "Yes, I know them.  Is that where you live?"  I said yes again.  She brought out the most colorful frames she had in the shop.

I still haven't made a decision.  Whether or not new eyeglasses are in my future is a matter still left up to fate. 

Regular readers who have been following La Belle Esplanade's saga for awhile will remember when the lovely lady writer from the Lonely Planet Guide came to visit our inn.  This was an unsolicited visit by us, as all of our positive (and negative) publicity is.

I just picked up a copy of the 2016 Lonely Planet Guide for New Orleans.  You can get your own copy, too, and I recommend it.  I don't always agree with the recommendations, but they are generally spot-on.

A line drawing of our inn

What don't I agree with about the Lonely Planet's recommendations?  The book says that if you want to stay in our neighborhood, a car is required.  Very, very few of our guests arrive with a car.  Those that do usually drive here from Texas or some other nearby state and they leave their car parked in front of our inn for the duration of their stay.  

We are located under a mile from the French Quarter in one direction and about one mile from City Park in the other direction.  Our neighborhood is full of details and surprises that you'll never notice from your car window.  New Orleans is a city best experienced on foot.  In that sense, we live in a pedestrian city.  That isn't to say that it's boring here.  Far from it.  It's delightful here.

Illustration from the Crescent City Bike Tours brochure

I mentioned what the Lonely Planet Guide said about needing a car to Kristine from Crescent City Bike Tours while she had a bike tour stopped across the street from our inn.  She was talking about the three colorful houses on the uptown side of the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue, as she often does when she pedals visitors down our street.  I like Kristine, as most people do, and, whenever I see her leading a tour I'll often amble across the street to chitchat and catch up and to trade a little harmless idle gossip.

When I told her that the Lonely Planet thinks visitors need a car to visit our part of the city, Kristine said, "What!?!  We didn't take a car to get here!"  That makes sense since she's in the bicycle rental business and all her party were astride one-speed cruisers.  

She continued, addressing the people on her tour, "As much as I recommend taking a bike around New Orleans, walking really is the best way to enjoy the city.  There is so much to see here, especially in this part of town."  In this case Kristine was very much like Frau Schmitt.  Kristine, like Frau Schmitt, was right.

I can't vouch for everything Kristine says though she is a very accurate tour guide.  I'll never quibble about her professional ethics while I can quibble, and I often do, about some of the things I overhear said by other tour guides in our neighborhood.  In this instance though, like Frau Schmitt, Kristine is definitely in the right.  Kristine added, "I would never rent a car if I was staying here and, believe you me, if I was visiting New Orleans, I would stay at La Belle Esplanade.  It's the Number One Bed and Breakfast in the City."

Kristine was right about that, too.  We've been rated the #1 B&B on Trip Advisor for 21 months now, since April 2014.  We're hoping to set a two-year record in that coveted slot (21 months is already a record).  Time will tell.  I hope I didn't just jinx us.  We don't pay to be rated number one.  It is all based on the honest reviews our guests have written about their stay at La Belle Esplanade.

The bedroom in our Clio Suite

Bidding Kristine and her tour group adieu, I settled into one of the antique chairs in our lobby and flipped open the 2016 Lonely Planet Guide to New Orleans to page 186.  On page 186, La Belle Esplanade is listed as the Top Choice place to say in Tremé and/or Mid-City.  Here is what page 186 says:

"A little quirky, a little saucy, and the co-owner wears a jaunty fedora --- a devil-may-care touch that ties the whole colorful shebang together.  Furnishings in the five themed suites vary but look for chunky headboards, plush chairs, Gibson girl portraits and claw foot tubs.  Bright, monochromatic walls keep it all pretention-free.  Savor crawfish pie and other tasty Southern fare for breakfast. 

"There's a small Museum of Curiosities in the entryway.  The fedora-wearing co-owner writes a very amusing blog for the B&B's website; and the place is a ten-minute walk from the Jazz Fest grounds."

When Amy, the Lonely Planet writer, stopped by, we gave her a full tour of the house so she saw every suite.  She ran her finger over some of the headboards, checking for dust.  Spotless.  If I had written the write-up, I would have emphasized different aspects of the inn, but she did a judicious job of describing what we offer here.  A tip of my jaunty fedora her way for a job done well.  Thanks, Amy!  You are welcome to come back anytime.  Next time, stay with us.  You'll have to pay the going rate, of course.  As I've tried to make clear above, we do not solicit paid endorsements and we do not try to influence what anyone has to say about their experience at our inn.  We do our utmost to exceed expectations and to share all the reasons why we are in love with this magical city we call home.  Honesty, as it always has been, is the best policy.

Who was that jaunty co-owner Amy was writing about?  He is none other than your humble narrator:

One of La Belle Esplanade's two innkeepers

If you are bored in New Orleans, it most probably isn't the city's fault.  I don't like to judge, but if you don't like your time in New Orleans, it says more about your own state of mind than it does about the endless delights New Orleans has to offer.  It's magical here; it's pure magic.

I could write more about this topic all night but you have other things to do than keep reading.  I know it's spellbinding, but let's move on to the next thing in our day-to-day lives, shall we?  This blog has some pretty deep archives so there is plenty more to peruse if you choose to.  Keep checking in regularly if your appetite isn't satisfied by reading the archives.  There is nothing worse than a dead blog so your humble narrator tries to keep things freshly updated regularly, whether the content is noteworthy or not.

One of those things you should be doing instead of reading old blog posts, or more recent ones, is you should be planning your trip to New Orleans.  What are you waiting for?  Now you know where you should stay and it isn't just the Lonely Planet Guide that thinks so.  We are a small boutique operation that caters to people who want to feel at home in New Orleans.  Home is where the heart is.  You'll like our part of the city and you won't need a car.  Trust me on this.  Frau Schmitt, like Kristine, would agree.

Until we meet in person,
à votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where the rest comes easy.

                                                           

Beware of pickpockets, loose women and Chinese food

Happy Mardi Gras, kids!

King cake season in New Orleans lasts between Joan of Arc's birthday and Ash Wednesday.  Everyone who lives here knows both dates by heart.  Joan of Arc was born on the feast day of the Epiphany.  That's January 6, if you didn't know.

A new Chinese restaurant opened a few months ago on St. Bernard Avenue, where it intersects with North Miro Street.  It's in the old Love's Seafood building.  Before it was Love's, it was another Chinese restaurant.  It's right next to the Rally's on St. Bernard.  Rally's is a drive through hamburger chain, though you can walk up for take out if you don't have a car.  

Rally's is only called Rally's in some places, like in New Orleans, for instance.  In other places, it's called Checkers.  Maybe you have a Checkers near you.  One or the other is in 28 states according to Wikipedia.  The two brand's websites look interchangeable for as long as I bothered to look at either of them.

The other day, the new Chinese restaurant left a menu in our mailbox that boasted that they make the "best Chinese food in town."  I don't even remember the name of the place even though I went there after reading the flyer.  Let's say it's Hunan Wok, which it probably is.  Even if it isn't Hunan Wok, it is something equally bland and generic that certainly won't get your tastebuds excited thinking about it.  The same is true of the interior.

Most Chinese joints look the same.  It's no strike against them.  They're all pretty much the same, so the look, like the difference between Rally's and Checkers, is just part of their identity.  The food at Hunan Wok was pretty good, though.  I ordered a Number 32 and that's what I got.  I also got a fortune cookie.

Frau Schmitt opened the cookie and read me my fortune: "Be on the lookout for any unexpectedly easy companionship from new-found female friends."  That's the same instructions the Republican National Committee handed out to delegates at the convention where Barry Goldwater was nominated for president.  

The fortune cookie's message was also remarkably similar to what the old signs in bar rooms and train stations used to say in New Orleans.  The signs were put up by the New Orleans Police Department.  You can buy replicas of them in the French Market:

NOPD's got your back

I doubt you're coming to visit to New Orleans to eat Chinese food from a nondescript takeout joint on St. Bernard Avenue.  That's not why I'm telling you this story.  It's like some of the old Creole ladies say at the Seahorse Saloon on Gentilly Blvd, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."  Ain't it the truth, though?

We'll be seeing you at the French Market.  While you're here, I won't say you have to be on your guard, but you should use common sense.  If you need any other advice, just ask.  We've got you covered.

Here's an extra tip: Never eat at a Chinese restaurant called "Yummy Yummy."  That's a sign it probably won't agree with your tummy.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Something's always happening in New Orleans

It's cold this week

It is unseasonably cold in New Orleans this week.  It is so cold that when I was in the Blue Dot Donut Shop the other morning the TV news was warning people that temperatures would approach freezing, so everyone had better bundle up!  The approaching cold front made the front page of the newspaper.  They were right.  The mercury hit 39 degrees Fahrenheit the other night.  It's so cold that our dog is wearing a sweater when we walk him.  It's so cold that he's happy to wear a sweater.  That's saying something.  He doesn't like to wear even a collar.

A beautiful orange house in New Orleans

We don't have the only orange house in New Orleans.  It isn't the most popular paint choice, but it isn't uncommon either.  If you are Uptown, most of the houses are shades of white and beige.  Downtown, where we live, there is more variety.  I was walking our dog around Faubourg Saint John, the neighborhood immediately lakeside of ours, and I noticed some orange paint.

Another orange house in New Olreans

During Mardi Gras, most of the parade routes run Uptown.  The rest of the year, laissez faire and joie de vivre are more the usual rule Downtown.  Uptown is the American side of New Orleans.  Downtown is the Creole side.  We like where we live.

Orange shutters in Fauboug St. John

As a rule, people don't pick up after their dogs Uptown.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's because they think they don't stink.  Downtown, just about everybody is a thoughtfully considerate citizen.  That's what I've noticed, anyway.

Liuzza's By The Track

Tucked away on Grand Route St. John (that's a street name hereabouts) there is a local lounge and grill call Liuzza's.  Don't confuse it with the Liuzza's on the corner of North Telemachus Street and Bienville Street in Mid-City.  This Liuzza's is Liuzza's By The Track, because the Fairgrounds Racetrack is just a few blocks away.  They are famous for their barbecue shrimp po'-boy sandwich.  The kitchen is open between 11:00 and 7:00, Monday through Saturday.

Window at Liuzza's By The Track

Despite what the sign in the window says, the bar is open whenever the Saints are playing.  Barbecue shrimp in New Orleans has nothing to do with barbecue anywhere else in the world.  Like they say: "You don't go to Memphis for seafood and you don't go to New Orleans for barbecue."  Unless you go to New Orleans for barbecue shrimp, that is.

A barbecue shrimp po'-boy is a loaf of french bread split in half longways.  It is overstuffed with boiled shrimp smothered in a sauce of butter and pepper, and the whole thing is dressed with lettuce, tomato, sweet pickles and mayonnaise.  If you are watching your cholesterol, don't forget your Lipitor (TM).  If you are watching the Saints game, dig in.

The latest addition to our lobby

I've been working on redecorating our lobby.  The postman arrived the other day with a big box.  You'll never guess what was inside.  It was a stuffed pheasant.  It's not the kind that you eat.  

I hadn't told Frau Schmitt what I had ordered.  She caught me hanging it on the wall, next to one of the tall windows.  "A stuffed bird?" she asked.  "You know you still have a giraffe's head that you have to hang up," she added.

I do have a giraffe's head.  I got it at an estate sale in Central City.  You never know what you'll come across when you turn a corner in New Orleans.  One day, it might be a dog wearing a sweater.  Another day, it could a giraffe's head on a table next to a dead person's wardrobe and a collection of heirloom spoons.  We already have a dog.

The stuffed pheasant makes the place look extra classy.  A professional photographer is coming by soon to take new pictures of the inn for our website.  "I think it's time you showed some pictures that you didn't take on your phone," Frau Schmitt says.  The current website is working fine, but she is usually right about these things.  That's why we always agree.

Stay tuned.

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

New coffee shop in New Orleans

Entrance to New Orleans City Hall

First of all, we would like to proffer a toast to your continued health and happiness.  That is the how we start business in New Orleans.

I was walking up Bayou Road today, which is the oldest street in the city.  Bayou Road, an old Choctaw portage trail that links Lake Pontchartrain to the the French Quarter, is why New Orleans is located where it is, a city known all over the world against all odds.  There is a new coffee shop opening at the corner of Bayou Road and North Dorgenois Street, two blocks lakeside of our address.

The future Pagoda Cafe

The building used to be one of a chain of Chinese laundries built to look like pagodas.  Try to do that nowadays.  The last Chinese laundry still operating in New Orleans is Q.Lee on Basin Street, just before that street turns into Orleans Avenue under the Claiborne Avenue Overpass.  It is next to Kermit's Speak Easy.   They do good work.  Like Calgon, it's an ancient Creole secret.  

The building has been falling down since Katrina.  It used to be some kind of reggae record store called One Love based on the faded paint job next to the former front door.  It's a beautiful mystery of a place.  They've been restoring the joint for about five months, working every day.  While I was walking the dog this afternoon, I was lucky enough to meet the new owners.

Notice the attention to detail.  This is how signs are painted in New Orleans, by hand, with an distinctive script that can be found from Seal's Class Act Lounge on the corner of Saint Bernard Avenue and North Miro Street, to the back lot behind City Hall that warns people not to park their motor bikes on the sidewalk.

Pagoda Cafe.  Coffe.  Breakfast.  Lunch.

I had a brief chat with the new proprietors of the Pagoda Cafe.  They are going to do a soft opening in about three weeks.  I can't wait.  I can't wait to have a neighborhood coffee shop two blocks away where I can catch up on neighborhood news and meet my neighbors as they go to work or just take a break on their way home.  It is a gem of a spot.  It's in our neighborhood.

"We still need to get some more permits from City Hall," the new entrepreneurs told me.  I feel their pain.  I had to go to City Hall today, myself.  It is a chore that is never a pleasure.  It really is a chore.  It is amazing that anything ever gets done in New Orleans.

City Hall, New Orleans

There is supposed to be a neon outline of the Mississippi River running behind the letters that say "CITY HALL."  Looking at the picture above, you'll notice that the only part that stays lit nowadays is the smidge of tubes between the H and the A.  Uptown.  As Kermit Ruffins like to ask during his Thursday set at Bullet's Sports Bar on A.P. Tureaud Avenue, "What is New Orleans?"  I always think it's that little bit of neon light that stays lit.

We live in a very interesting neighborhood.  It gets better every day.  

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Bayou Boogaloo Review

New Orleans hydrangea

I was taking some pictures of the hydrangea behind our inn the other morning.  It was after I had picked up the day's muffalettas and crawfish pies. I had some time to kill because we weren't expecting anyone to be awake for another half hour.  It turned out two of our guests are early risers.

They had been to the Mid- City Bayou Boogaloo the day before.  We didn't go this year, but we have been before.  It's like a smaller version of Jazz Fest on Bayou Saint John.  We've always thought of it as only attracting people from the area, but we know two people who flew in from The Beehive City. 

This isn't the place

It is also known as The Hardware City.

This is the place

I asked them if they enjoyed their day.  Was it worth flying from out-of-state to go to this year's Bayou Boogaloo?  "It was everything we expected," they enthused.  They said they had a great time.  "We got their early and stayed until closing.  It's like nothing we have back home," they said.

It is their first time in New Orleans.  "You're in the perfect location," they told me.  They've been to the Quarter.  They've been to Frenchman Street.  They had dinner at The Three Muses the night before.  They were at the Bayou Boogaloo all day yesterday, then they had dinner at Cafe Degas, up the street. "We haven't taken a taxi yet," they said.

What were their plans for today?  They are going to walk up to City Park.  Then, they are taking the Canal Street streetcar to the ferry.  Then, they are going to shop for artwork in Jackson Square.   

"We know where we're going to vacation next year," they told me. They've fallen in love with New Orleans.  "It's the opposite here from where we come from," they said.  

Frau Schmitt and your humble narrator moved here from Boston.  We know what they mean.

Sicut Patribus Sit Deus Nobis 

They are definitely committing to coming to the 2014 Bayou Boogaloo.  They are thinking about coming to next year's Jazz Fest.  They asked how far we are from the Fair Grounds.  It's a twelve-minute walk up Bayou Road, across the street, to the Jazz Fest front gate.  "You really are in the perfect location," they said.

Fairgrounds Racetrack gate

 I was talking to Larry a few weeks ago.  He deals with surveys.  "Studies show that there is only one question on a survey that means anything," he told me.  "Would you recommend us to a friend?"

"We'll be telling everybody how great the Bayou Boogaloo was.  We'll be telling everyone how great New Orleans is," our guests told me.

Laissez les bon temps rouler

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

An Anniversary Bed and Breakfast

Une belle ingenue

If New Orleans, this most seductive of cities, was a woman, she would not be a femme fatale.  She'd be your best friend; the kind of gal pal who sticks with you through thick and thin, good times and bad, in brightest day and blackest night.  That's what I think, at least.

The other evening, I passed a few of our guests on the sidewalk as they were headed to Liuzza's for dinner, which is not to be confused with the unrelated Liuzza's by the Track where they had lunch.  We chatted a bit under the darkening sky and one of them mentioned that she envied us for living in New Orleans.  I had to admit, blushing as I did so, that I felt a pang of envy for them.

I understand why people say we are lucky to live where we do.  I feel lucky every time we walk out our front door, every time we order po' boys and I groan that there is no way I am going to finish mine, every time we get stuck behind a second line parade, every time somebody starts a rambling conversation on a street corner with us and I have to pinch myself that we're not in New England anymore and that, really, what's the rush?  This palaver is more important than what's hiding in the future.  I feel lucky every time it's after dark and I'm on the downtown side of the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue, looking uptown.

Esplanade Avenue at night

Every day has been better than the last during the time we have lived in New Orleans.  We know we have found our home in a world that is often cruel and often unkind.  New Orleans can be those things too, and it often is, but New Orleans is unlike anywhere else.  I don't know much about the rest of Louisiana, but whoever you are, whatever you are, and wherever you're from, you are welcome here, and there is no time like that first introduction.  

You never forget your first time in New Orleans.  It gets better and deeper after that, but you never forget that first flush of intoxication.  Some people call that feeling love.  True love gets better with time.  In New Orleans, when the moon hits your eye like a muffaletta, that's l'amore.  You never forget your first time in New Orleans the way you never forget your first girl.

La Belle d'Esplanade

Let's say you are a lady from Rome, GA.  You're special for that reason, of course, but so are 36,303 other people according to the 2010 census.  Let's say you grew up there, have lived there all your life, and have raised a family there, with a gentleman from Thomasville, GA.  You've been married to that gentleman for 15 happy years.  You have a three children and you are grandparents.  

I've heard it said that the climate in Rome keeps people looking young.  If it is true of popes, it is certainly true of Georgians.  I can attest to that because you and your husband checked in at noon yesterday.  "We wanted to do something special for our fifteenth wedding anniversary," your husband told me.  You are a lucky woman and he is a lucky man.  Welcome to New Orleans.

You arrived at noon.  "We're sorry we're early," you told us.  Your husband added, "We were excited to get here, so we left early."  We understand.  We are excited to be here, too, every day.  That's why we wake up early after staying up late.  Happily, we have a shorter trip.  Welcome to New Orleans.

You arrived at noon.  If you had arrived at midnight, the light would have been on in the lobby, waiting for you.  Welcome to La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Esplanade Avenue at night

We will do what we can to help you make pleasant memories, the kind that will last the next fifteen years, and all the many, many happy years after that.

Esplanade Avenue is one of the most beautiful streets in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  If you are going to celebrate life and fall in love again, there are few better places to do it than in New Orleans.  It could happen to you.  It happened to "Sweet" Molly Malone.

A print in La Pelican Suite

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Our first illustration was courtesy of The Bleat.

Fair Grounds Race Track for Thanksgiving 2012

An immortalized jockey

We are not gamblers.  I don't think Frau Schmitt has even been to the Fair Grounds Race Course and Slots located in Gentilly, New Orleans, LA.  I have been a few times, but never to bet on the ponies.

I know a few people who make some walking around money from betting on the races.  I know a few families who make it a tradition to go to the Fair Grounds on Thanksgiving Day, the day the track officially opens.  You can visit New Orleans any time of year, and you can visit the Fair Grounds any day.  The best days are during Jazz Fest and on opening day.

I happen to know of a colorful New Orleans bed and breakfast inn that is only a picturesque seven-minute stroll from where the action happens.

A garden of heroes

While I haven't placed a bet at the Fair Grounds, I have wandered the grounds and enjoyed the ambiance.  I admit that I have been tempted to place a bet, but it all seems very confusing.  I buy the Racing Form newspaper and I read the statistics and articles.  The ladies at the counter tell me it is easy to pick a trifecta, but I don't really know what a trifecta is, let alone being comfortable enough to lay down a dollar wager.

Napoleon always posed with his hand in his vest

There are plenty of traditions in New Orleans and there is plenty to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day in New Orleans.  Yes, you can go to the French Quarter and have a good time.  Everyone who  visits New Orleans does it at least once, but there is so much more that makes New Orleans the City That Care Forgot.  There is horse racing and there is history.

They face the rising sun

The New Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course is full of exhibits and memorabilia from the track's glory days, including last year.  Even if you don't follow the ponies, you will be able to wile away a few hours soaking up the atmosphere, especially on Thanksgiving, the track's busiest day of the year.  

People come from all over Louisiana, from the outlying parishes and small bayou-hugging hamlets, to take part in the excitement when the thoroughbreds charge out the gate on opening day.  They come from Kentucky to see what the competition will be like.  Sheiks and English gentry come to the Fair Grounds for Thanksgiving to watch potential champions prove their mettle.

A day at the races

You can stay in a chain hotel and spend a whole vacation in the French Quarter, but New Orleans is a city full of unexpected delights.  Life is what you make it.  You can be guided on a tour, or you can create your own adventures.  New Orleans is fertile ground from which fond memories sprout without encouragement for people who choose to venture where the citizens spend their days and nights.  If you have never been to New Orleans, you don't know what you are missing.  If you have only been to the French Quarter, you have missed quite a bit of what makes this city special beyond compare.

The excitement never stops in New Orleans, LA

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast is a colorful inn located between the French Quarter and City Park.  It is near everything important in more ways than one, and in more ways than two.  In a kaleidoscopic city, surprises are around every corner for people with they eyes to see and the ears to hear.