Day 5 New Orleans 30th Dec

Our room at the Royal St Charles is cosy, so cosy that it has no window, just a fake one.  Maybe this was why this morning Lance woke me up with "F*%! it's 10 o'clock!"

This is highly unusual for us, especially Lance as he is an early riser. It wasn't long before we were out pounding the pavement and grabbed a seat on the tram car. 

 This took us right up St Charles St, through a magnificent residential area, it was right out of the movies. Quaint, palatial and ornate, I could just imagine the days gone by with a slave woman sweeping the porch and a man in the garden. As the day was bleak many homes had their lights on and you could catch a glimpse inside of huge lit Christmas trees and lamps set perfectly in each window. We hadn't had any breakfast, not even a cup of tea so after a trip of about 2 hours we hopped off back in town in search of nourishment. Light rain was falling and we popped into the Canal St Mall, a safe move as all of the shops were top dollar, so no spending there, well actually I did have to spend a penny after we had a bite to eat.

By now we had made our way down to the river and found 'Riverpark Walk' a small outlet mall, I manage to leave with a few parcels and an extra full belly. Cafe La Monde is famous for it's beignet.  These are fried doughnuts covered, and I mean covered in icing sugar. 

By now it was 3pm and we wanted to get some tickets for the 'hop on hop off bus'. On our way I needed to spend another penny and popped into a much larger, and the original Cafe la Monde. I had to queue and the toilets were so disgusting that I would never eat at that cafe. 

After a bit of a rest we headed out for the evening, heading of course, to Bourbon St. Cornet was our choice and what do you know? New Zealand wine!  Lance had jambalaya and I had crawfish Mac and cheese. The crawfish were tiny little tails like a prawn tail. The whole meal was very tasty. 

We moved on to a little jazz bar, Maison Bourbon.  This had a quintet of mostly old fellas playing, I enjoyed them so much that I bought their CD. And they served NZ wine! 

Toilet: very clean, however they had swing saloon doors with no lock!  A toilet nightmare!  I had just stood up to pull up my pants and a woman was just about to push open the doors, she got a heck of a fright when my head popped up. 

Just had to take this photo of the shadow on the church. 

Next call was a bar that had two guys playing piano, duelling they said. The first song we heard was piano man, so drinks were purchased. No NZ wine, in fact when Lance asked for a sav blance the girl said that they only have white wine. So a cup of wine was purchased, I had one sip and left the rest. I did use the toilet, as I hadn't wanted a repeat performance in the swing door toilets. Whaddya know? This bar led to the exact same toilets, quickest wee in history.  And after a few songs we moved to famous door where a pretty good band was playing and best of all the beers were ice cold in this chiller.  

Not finished yet, a last stop at funky 544, old school disco and Motown (except for one Neil Diamond song). We were talked into some dual shots with the waitress. 

Finally we headed home ready for an early morning for a plantation tour.