New Orleans' Indigenous Plants

New Orleans is a cosmopolitan city connected to the rest of the world, even if it doesn't look one.  The Port of New Orleans is the third-busiest port in the United States.  You may not think much of New Orleans is indigenous.  Ours is a city built of brick and stone and concrete, nothing that is naturally found in this part of Louisiana.  New Orleans' indigenous plants flourish in this sub-tropical climate.  Everything flourishes in New Orleans: plants, vegetables, daydreams, good memories----even you.

Animal, vegetable, mineral, and spirit.  These are the things from which New Orleans is made.  This most convivial city blossoms with wishes come true, even at night.

Passions bloom  yellow in the New Orleans side street shadows.

Look around.  New Orleans' indigenous plants sprout from the over-rich damp soil in front yards, in back yards, in the parks, and between the cracks in the sidewalks.  Everything flourishes in New Orleans.  Ask anyone who lives here.  They'll tell you the truth.  In a city of love, the first thing to wilt is hatred.  Love makes New Orleans wake up every morning to embrace the oncoming day.  All is good. There is nothing so sweet and parti-flavored as a day spent in New Orleans.  

Lucky are those who thrive in New Orleans.

New Orleans indigenous plants are everywhere.

What are New Orleans' indigenous plants?  I'm not a botanist so I can't really tell you.  Creole tomatoes are not a particular breed, they are just tomatoes that grow in New Orleans soil.  They are the tastiest tomatoes of all.  This is true of anything that grows in New Orleans.  It you find it in New Orleans, it's gotta be good.  The prettiest flowers grow in New Orleans.  Bees love New Orleans pollen.  They make the sweetest honey from their harvest.

Open your nose.  Flare your nostrils.  Inhale.  Aaaaaahhhhh!  Those are New Orleans' indigenous plants that you're smelling.  That is New Orleans' atmosphere.  There is no other perfume so sweet and intoxicating as the scent of a New Orleans day.

A house on Bayou Road in our neighborhood.

A word from our sponsor:

La Belle Esplanade is a small artisanal hotel on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans, on a historic and picturesque New Orleans street that is a jungle of New Orleans' indigenous plants.

If you want to discover what it means to really fall in love with the authentic New Orleans, visit La Belle's website.  See what La Belle offers.  If you like what you read, you can stay at a lot worse places in New Orleans; a lot worse.  La Belle has been ranked the #1 place to stay in New Orleans since April 2014.  Two-time winner of the TripAdvisor Travelers' choice award: #2 small hotel in the United States and #16 in the world.  

Get your New Orleans on and visit like you belong here.  You do belong here.  We only have five suites so we tend to fill up early.  Plan ahead and make a reservation today.  You won't regret it.  The best memories are made in our part of New Orleans.

You'll Never Guess What I Saw in New Orleans.

I'm often surprised that more children's books aren't set in New Orleans.  You'll never guess what I saw in New Orleans.  It was a pleasant surprise, as most things that I see in New Orleans are.  In New Orleans, even more than in Chicago, it's your kind of razzmatazz and it has all that jazz.

New Orleans is a city full of magical vistas.

Life and death.  Pleasure and pain.  Angels and devils.  Samaritans and Philistines.  Gain and loss.  Providence and misfortune.  Laughter and tears.  A rollercoaster.  Orange and blue.  Sunny and rainy.  Day and night, and day again---and night, again.  

Shall I list all the streets where you can find pleasant surprises in New Orleans?  Not here.  We don't have the space.  There are books written about New Orleans street names.  You'll never guess what I saw in New Orleans.  You won't find it any book unless Frau Schmitt chooses to publish my posthumous memoirs.  Frau Schmitt is the better half of this operation.  I doubt she would inflict my memoirs on the world.  Tulane University Press, though, that's another story.

Welcome to the New Orleans state of mind.

Life is a parade.  More so in New Orleans.  Life goes on.  It goes on, and on, and on, and on, & on, & on, & on....  One blessing follows the one before it.  Guess what's going to happen tomorrow?  If you said more blessings, you're right.

Spend a week in New Orleans.  Let New Orleans get under your skin, deep in the heart of you.  Let it get so deep that New Orleans will become a part of you.  Then, you'll be changed for the better.  Outside the Garden of Eden, there is no place so nice on God's green Earth as New Orleans.  Many people leave their heart here; then they come back to find it.  New Orleans never disappoints.

You'll never guess what I saw in New Orleans.  We live in a kaleidoscope of a city.

New Orleans is calling you.  You know where you should stay, dontcha?  La Belle Esplanade, the #1 place to stay in New Orleans (according to TripAdvisor) since April 2014, and the #2 small hotel in the United States and the #1 small hotel in the world (as I never get tired of repeating).

You should read the blog on our official website, too.  Here, you are getting a different version.  La Belle Esplanade gone acoustic and uncensored.  On either site you can spend a lot of time trawling through the archives to discover New Orleans secrets and get yourself into a proper New Orleans state of mind.

Speaking of the New Orleans state of mind.  Follow La Belle Esplanade on Facebook.  We post items 2, 3, 5 times a day to share what it is like to live in this wonderful city we call home.  No pictures of Bourbon Street and rarely pictures of the French Quarter.  La Belle Esplanade is located in authentic New Orleans, the part of the city where people live out their lives and make good memories.  You can make good memories here, too.  You should.

Get off the tourist radar and stay at La Belle Esplanade, a small craft hotel on the second-most beautiful street in the city.  Our address is in a very interesting neighborhood full of small museums, nationally famous restaurants, off-the-beaten-path diversions, and all the things that will help you know what it means to love New Orleans.

We're here for you,
La Belle Esplanade
Wednesday, June 26, 2019.

THIS is real New Orleans. Really REAL New Orleans.

New Orleans misses you.  If you've been to New Orleans before, New Orleans misses you.  There is more here for you to explore.  If you haven't been to New Orleans before, New Orleans misses you.  You belong here at least for a week, maybe more.

New Orleans is calling you.  Answer that call.

Trust your heart.  You belong in New Orleans.

I spend most of my waking life in New Orleans so I feel kinda qualified to speak as an amateur expert, albeit one without sheepskin credentials or portfolio.  I'm just a regular chap who lives in this interesting city we call home.  I put my pants on one leg at a time.  I make no claims to greatness.  If greatness wants to find me, it knows where I live: in the bright orange house with blue shutters in the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue.

We call that a mystery shot in our business.  Follow your dreams to La Belle Esplanade.

We live in a city saturated with serendipity and plump with pleasant surprises.  New Orleans is a city that marinates in hopes, prayers, daydreams, idylls, schemes, aims and enterprises, desires, visions, good intentions, celebrations, and attainable aspirations.  New Orleans isn't a fool's paradise.  New Orleans simmers on high until its broth is extra-concentrated to savory perfection.

A wild egret in City Park, at one end of Esplanade Avenue.

My heart goes where the wild egret goes and my heart knows what that egret knows.  Wild Egret, Brother Egret, which is best?  A wandering fool or a heart at rest?  

I rest my head in my bed on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.  You should, too.  Sleep the sleep of the contented.  The best memories of all are made on Esplanade Avenue.  I have a lifetime's worth of them stashed in my heart.  You should add to your cache of treasured memories by staying in our neighborhood when you visit New Orleans.  We are close to the tourist attractions but far enough away so that you'll get a good night's sleep and be able to explore the real New Orleans where Orleanians live.  Welcome to authentic New Orleans.  

Read over this blog post.  Read some entries from the archives.  Does a regular hotel write a blog like this?  No.  

Welcome to our world.  This is real New Orleans.  Visit like you belong here.  You do belong here.  Trust me.  You wouldn't have read this far if you don't. 

You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans,

-La Belle Esplanade

There is a physical New Orleans and then there is a New Orleans of the heart.  Keep your eyes open in this wonderful city we call home and you’ll learn what it means to fall in love with New Orleans.  We’re here for you.  You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue.    Follow our other blog, or, follow us on Facebook, subscribe to our newsletter (which you'll find at the bottom of our website's page).  Keep yourself in a New Orleans state of mind.  

There is regular happy, and then there is New Orleans happy.  When you are ready to visit, you know where to find us: we’re in the bright orange house with blue shutters.  Good memories are made on our street.

We only have five suites.  Ours is a small artisanal operation.  You know how you get the best beer from a craft brewery?  Well, you get the best hospitality from a craft hotel.  We know what we’re doing.  Let us share the real New Orleans with you, not the off-the-rack version.  Plug your dates into our calendar and see what we have available.  Plan ahead.  With only five suites we tend to fill up early.

Stay as long as you can.  No one ever says their visit to New Orleans is too long.  They always say it is too short.  The longer you are here, the more you’ll realize how much more there is to discover and explore.  There are good surprises around every corner.  New Orleans blooms with happiness.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us, that’s what we’re here for.  We look forward to meeting you in person.

Ranked the #1 place to stay in New Orleans since April 2014 for very good reasons:

One of the top 0.0001% of places to stay in the whole world.  We are also in the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame.  You can choose a lot worse places to make your New Orleans headquarters.  Use your better intuition.  Stay at La Belle Esplanade and learn what it means to really fall in love with New Orleans. 

Parrots in New Orleans

New Orleans parrot

I sit in the gardens behind our house all the time, but I rarely meet with guests there.  We live in New Orleans.  When people stay with us, they are usually out and about, exploring the city and all the things this mesmerizing metropolis offers.  You know: jazz, son-balls, muffalattas, sazaracs, the French Quarter, the art museums, the ferry, those kind of things.  While our gardens are lovely, there is so much to do in New Orleans, most people don't hang around our house when they visit.  They're welcome to, of course, but most don't.

Hello, friend

   
I was sitting in the back garden when a colorful parrot landed in the oleander tree.  I've never seen a bird so beautiful.  He was tame, but he kept his distance, keeping to the branches around our patio until Belfast Billy showed up.

The parrot loved Belfast Billy, who was our guest at the time, along with Billy's lovely wife.  We sat at the table under under the sun umbrella and fed the parrot sunflower seeds and drinks from our fountain.  The parrot, as well as everyone else, was good company.

Angie asked me, "What is your day like?  I mean, what do you do over the course of your day?"  I looked straight at the colorful parrot and I said, "My days are like this.  I never know what's going to happen."  

The parrot had escaped from a house two blocks away, in Tremé.  The owners called over the back fence to fetch him.  They heard his cries from the corner, where Barracks Street intersects with N. Tonti Street.  Turns out the parrot is a she.  Her name is Parsley.  She's a lovely bird.  I enjoyed the time I spent admiring her colors and, while I don't hope she escapes again, I hope that if she does she'll know she is welcome here.  Everybody is.

Traditionally, there are four beers associated with New Orleans.  You can find evidence of them everywhere.  Not the beers, mind you, but signs, coasters, shirts and souvenirs stamped with their logos.  These four local beer brands, which commanded 80% of the New Orleans market in their day, are: Regal, Dixie, Jax, and Falstaff.

Dixie is still brewed, albeit somewhere far outside the city.  The Jax brewery building is now an odd shopping mall next to Jackson Square.  The Falstaff brewery building is now apartments, but the Falstaff sign still stands in Mid-City, still a landmark.  The Regal brewery building was torn down.  On it's foundation the Royal Sonesta Hotel was erected.

Parsley loves Regal Beer

I was looking at some old commercials for Regal Beer, the Never-Hurried Beer.




This video's notes say this is Harry Owens.  I know Harry Owens and this chap looks nothing like the Harry Owens from Nebraska who transplanted to Hawai'i and wrote songs that Bing Crosby sang.

Unless he's wearing a toupee for that Regal Beer commercial, this is what the Harry Owens I'm thinking of looked like in 1958:

Sit through that second clip long enough and you'll figure out that the guy in the first clip isn't Harry Owens.  

This is like people who go to Disney World (the one in Florida) and think they are getting a true Hawaiian experience by staying in the Polynesian Resort.  I've been to the Polynesian Resort, I enjoyed it.  We saw the luau show.  It was okay, especially the last twenty minutes.  Was it authentic?  Well, Neither Frau Schmitt nor I have been to Hawai'i but we're guessing the answer is no.  Maybe I should write that in capital letters: NO.

If you go to Disney World (the one in Florida) you can also stay at the New Orleans Resort.  Is it gonna be anything like New Orleans? We didn't visit it, though it was tempting, but we're guessing the answer is no.  Maybe I should write that in capital letters: NO.

If you want to experience New Orleans the way it is lived by the people who call this magical city home, we can recommend a place to stay.  It's on Esplanade Avenue.  You'll still be a tourist, but our inn will be your home for as long as you are here.  Our job is to be ambassadors.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

If you want to hear der Bingle sing Sweet Leilani by Harry Owens, here is your chance:

New Orleans is full of surprises

Sunset New Orleans

You can't see it in a photo this size, but that's the Superdome in the background, about 2 and a half miles away as the pelican flies.  It takes about an hour to walk there, if you are so inclined.  We never have tickets for a game but we like to tailgate with everybody else outside the stadium.  We love when the Saints are playing a home game.  It's the best time to run errands, and the play-by-play commentary is on every radio so we always know what's happening, even if we are just picking up fresh pralines at Loretta's.  Go Saints!

I was standing on the balcony of La France Suite, overlooking the back gardens and the pecan tree in back of our shared property.

Fresh pecans make good pralines

I always tell Frau Schmitt, who is the better half of this pair, that we live in a beautiful neighborhood.  She agrees, and she is usually right about these things.  There is something to be said about a smart woman's point of view.

I was making the introduction of the neighborhood to two guests from Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, and I mentioned that things look very different in New Orleans.  Nothing is as it appears.  I mentioned that there are some abandoned buildings, some blight, some empty lots.  Two days later, Stephen, the male of the pair, said, "I was expecting the worst, the way you described it.  It's really the best."  He is right, of course, the way Frau Schmitt usually is.  We live in a lovely part of town.  It is pure New Orleans.  There can never be anything wrong with that.

The fountain in the garden

As I write this, I can hear some crows cawing in the palm tree a block away on Governor Nicholls Street.  The past few weeks have brought crows to our neighborhood, almost as many as come by in springtime.  Who knows why anything happens in New Orleans? Some people chalk it up to magic.  We do.  Some people claim that New Orleans is a magical city.  You'll have to visit it yourself to decide if this is true.

It is.

Orleans Parish Prison

The sheriff is building a new prison on Gravier Street, or maybe it's Girod.  Wherever it is, it is in Mid-City, hard by the interstate highway.  The old prison building looks just like the LSU dental school, or the new LSU Medical Center that is being built on Canal Street.  I took the picture above of the old prison after having a lunch of fried catfish on Tulane Avenue.  Ours is a wonderful city.

After I snapped the picture above, I ran into Claire DuBois.  "Did you get that picture I sent you?" she asked.  I had.  The picture was of her grandmother, Clarissette DuBois (nee Etoile) who worked as the secretary of the American Frog Canning Company in 1939 when she posed for the photo.

She is holding the female in one hand and the male in the other

You never know what you will encounter in New Orleans.  It is a magical place.  We know a few restaurants that specialize in frog legs.  Boy-o-boy!  Are they ever tasty!  Especially on Tuesdays when the fresh catch is auctioned in the Frog Market in Broadmoor.  If you want to know New Orleans' secrets, you have to live here.  That's what we do.

A votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Things are looking up in New Orleans

Things are looking up

I was in the garden this morning, out back, when I looked up at the back of our house.  There is no wondering which way is heaven.  It is excelsior.  Things are looking up on Esplanade Avenue.

2200 block, Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans

Our street has just been repaved, and there are wide and safe bike lanes.  The pavement, unusual for New Orleans, is smoother than sugar cane.  Back in the garden, the flowers are blooming.

It looks like popcorn

That's a butterfly wing on your left

There are beautiful secrets in New Orleans

Do you want to know the best time to be in New Orleans?  August.  That's when the best things happen.

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

New Orleans Cemetery Tour

Saint Louis King of France

You know how happy kids are to take a historical walking tour in July?  They like it doubly much when they are tromping between the ovens in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.  

It was 93 degrees and humid during some parts of the day.  Depending on where you were standing, it was raining; the kind of rain that cools you off without making you wet.  Depending on where you were, it could have rained buckets for twenty minutes.  I heard that it happened in Gert Town around 10:00 this morning.  

The picture above is of the statue of Saint Louis IX.  It's in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3, on the end of Esplanade Avenue.  Though better maintained than St. Louis No. 1 and No. 2, it was just as hot at 2:00 this afternoon in No. 3, where it was 93 degrees and humid.  There were three busloads of tours wandering about.  The kids were loving it.

If you haven't paid for a tour, it is shoplifting to linger too long while the guide is speaking, even if the only purpose of your being there is to visit the grave he or she is talking about.  Even if you already know the story and could tell it better yourself.  Since I'm not that kind of person, I wandered around taking pictures of where there weren't any tour guides.

Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta

That's an apartment building in the background of this picture, not a mausoleum.

When we lived in Boston, we lived within walking distance of Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta Church.  There was a very nice ice cream parlor and coffee shop around the corner on Dot Ave.  

St. Louis No. 3 has a remarkable collection of statues of 20th century holy people.

Saint Padre Pio

Bronze must be cheaper than marble.  You don't see many old bronze statues in cemeteries, either in New Orleans or anywhere else I have ever been.  They are usually made of marble.  Bronze was saved for the public square.  Marble must have been cheaper than bronze at some point.  

Our Lady of Grace

A New Orleans Brass Band

I'd like to say that a brass band passed by, but that doesn't usually happen on Wednesdays in our part of town unless there is a funeral.  It doesn't happen often.  It usually happens on Saturdays and Sundays when some happy couple is getting married.

I walked back to our place under the shady oaks.  It was 82 degrees in the shade, and just as humid.  I waved to the tour bus that was paused in front of our house.  On my way up our front porch, I passed a statue made of fiberglass.  

Our Lady of Dorgenois

 A family wearing fanny packs walked by.  One of the kids said, "This is the most beautiful street we've been on, yet."

I couldn't agree more.

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Money Wasters Second Line

Money Wasters Social Aid and Pleasure Club

As anyone will tell you, nothing bad, not even professional wrestling, ever came out of Stamford, Connecticut.  Just ask Mayor Pavia.  Your humble narrator's certified birth certificate is filed away in city hall.  He has turned the corner at East Main Street and Houston Terrace more times than he can remember.

Where would you take your mother on her first day in your fair city?

Treme

Since we live in Treme, we went to a second line parade.  The Money Wasters Social Aid and Pleasure Club were going down North Broad Street, three blocks from our house.  It was 40 degrees in Connecticut yesterday.  It was in the mid-eighties in New Orleans today.  We walked the three shady blocks up Esplanade Avenue, but the parade hadn't arrived yet.  We decided to walk uptown and meet them en route.

We got as far as Zulu Headquarters.

Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club

It was election day.

Temmer Fox is running for Mr. Big Stuff 2014

I don't know if you have to provide a birth certificate to be a member of either the Zulu or Money Wasters clubs.  I don't know if there are any rules against being members of both clubs.  I don't see why there would be, but, unfortunately, I'm not a member of either.

The brass band rounded the corner from Orleans Avenue onto North Broad Street.  They had just come up from Kermit's Treme Speakeasy.  The second line paused for a spell.  Some people went inside the building.  Other people got something to eat on the neutral ground.  The police blocked off the street so that everyone could laugh and talk and dance.  You meet a lot of friends in New Orleans.

The Money Wasters' Queen

We followed the brass band as far as our eye doctor's office on North Broad Street, past the Crawfish House.  It was the next stop on the route.  We watched the queen offer a toast to our eye doctor.  In our neighborhood, there is a different surprise around every corner.  Then, we walked down Bayou Road, back home, where we sat in the garden behind our inn.  

Our back garden

This morning, a couple from Amsterdam asked me what our chairs are called.  Answer: Adirondack.  "That's a Creole word?" they asked, "They are native to here?"  They are named after the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, close to where I'm from.  They are very comfortable chairs, as our guests agreed.   

This week, our guests are being treated to an unexpected bonus.  They get to chat over breakfast with three family members.  

A couple from Akron are having a romantic bed and breakfast getaway with us.  They mentioned to my mother that she must be very proud of all the work Frau Schmitt and I have put into our inn.  "He always showed promise," my mother told them.  "That, and he married himself a good wife."  My mother is usually right about these things.

Blue hydrangea

The hydrangea are blooming in our back garden.  My grandparents had a blue hydrangea bush in their back yard.  Good memories are made on Esplanade Avenue.  Our blog will be on a brief hiatus while Frau Schmitt and I squire my mother around New Orleans, and my mother and I stroll down Memory Lane.  

We'll be back on June 3rd.  Why not June 2?  Because Frau Schmitt and I thinking of taking a group scooter ride up to Baton Rouge on June 2nd and that promises to take all day.  

Two wheels set you free

A votre sante,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.   

New Orleans Has a Story

Resistance is futile

For the third time this week, someone stepped out of a taxi cab and asked, "Why are you flying the Corsican flag from your front balcony?"  

When I'm sitting on the front stoop, reading the newspaper, enjoying a cigar and the March temperatures, watching the cab traffic, most people who walk by look at the flag, and then they ask if this is a pirate house.  It is not a pirate house.  It is a colorful and eccentric, historic New Orleans bed and breakfast inn.  The flag was a gift from our generous neighbor who is an amateur vexillologist.  Unwittingly, he gave us a conversation piece.

Everyday can be St. Valentine's Day in New Orleans

You know what they say about people from Minnesota?  Well, it's true.  It is also true about people who visit New Orleans from Austria, Australia, Flower Mound, TX, and Upperco, MD.  From The City of Brotherly Love, to the seat of Clark County, Arkansas, from The City of Lights, to the Hog Butcher of the World, people are nice.  Happily, this seems to be a fact of life.  We've found it to be the case on the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue.  Wandering our neighborhood, it soon becomes obvious that people are nice for blocks and blocks around our address.  

2216 Esplanade Avenue

You never know what you'll find in New Orleans if you poke around a bit, if you crane your neck, if you pause to smell the satsuma blossoms and magnolias, or if you pause for a moment to more closely examine that flash of color that caught the corner of your eye for a hint of a second.  New Orleans is a city of double takes.  You can't trust your eyes.  You have to trust your instincts.

We are not going to suggest that there is anything more special in the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue than there is anywhere else in the rest of the City of New Orleans.  We cannot.  There isn't.  All of New Orleans is magical.  There are surprises and epiphanies in every nook and niche for people who wear a certain kind of glasses, ready to take a bite of the Crescent City's cookery. 

If you are paying close attention, you might see a flash of colors not found in nature peeking out between some wild ginger leaves overgrowing a green-painted cast iron fence on the downtown property line of an address on the uptown side of Esplanade Avenue.  Some people think they have just glimpsed a butterfly fluttering by and think nothing else of it.  The dogs people walk along Esplanade keep their noses to the ground, then they pull at the leash to get at a chicken bone lying a few yards toward the river.  Joggers jog by with only their destination in sight.  Some people stop for a minute or more.

There are enchanted places on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans:

The DayGlo Madonnas of Esplanade Avenue

Our Lady of Rocheblave:

Orange Madonna

And Our Lady of Dorgenois:

Green Madonna

Good people are out and about everywhere in New Orleans, every day.  There are both sinners and saints.  In this most catholic of cities, everyone is welcome and everyone treats everybody else the way they would like to be treated.  There are no strangers in New Orleans, only friends and family, whether you know it yet or not.  The facts of life are not always nice, but they are always good.  When you are in New Orleans, life is good.

You never forget your first day in New Orleans.  Every day after that only gets better.  If you don't live here, stay for more than a weekend.  Stay for a week.  Though you may not be able to move here, you'll want to come back every year, at least for a short spell to revive your batteries. 

A votre sante.

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast

Staying in a New Orleans bed and breakfast

The sun shines in New Orleans

I know I used that photo to illustrate the last post, but I like it.  It is how I feel every day when I come home.  If you are staying in New Orleans, you will hopefully be staying at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.  Then, you can feel the same way.  

For New Year's Eve, two of our guests were lovely ladies from Wisconsin.  Are there any other kind?  They certainly enjoyed the weather this morning compared to January 1 in America's Dairyland.  They stayed in Les Fleurs Suite, on the first floor.

It is always nice to see people enjoying the front porch of Les Fleurs Suite.

They enjoyed an enviable street view

We all enjoyed a leisurely breakfast that ran the gamut of flavors like the new year surely will.  Frau Schmitt served up samples of mufalettas, boudin, hot biscuits, locally made fig, raspberry and apple preserves, lemon curd made by Georgie on the North Shore, and one each of the pickled eggplant, string beans, mirliton and a quail egg from Josie in St. Bernard Parish.  Coffee with chicory and a cup of Luzianne tea washed it all down.

After they returned the key and we loaded the car together, they said, "Do you mind if we just sit in the garden a bit before we get back on the road?  We don't have gardens like this in Wisconsin and we want to savor the moment.  It's beautiful here."

They don't have gardens like this in Wisconsin

Who would complain about enjoying the gardens?  That's what they are there for.

They must have fountains like this in Wisconsin, somewhere

The whole inn is meant to be enjoyed.  That is why every room is a different color and every mantle (there is a former fireplace in every room) is full of unique bric-a-brac.  It is why there are historical stories and original artwork hung on the walls all over the house.  

Did I mention how I feel when I come home every day?

The sun always shines in New Orleans

If you are planning a trip to New Orleans, consider La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.  

A votre sante.