I am an urbanist. I like cities, large ones, midsize ones, small towns. Let me walk, sometimes drive, where centuries of habitation have left layers of history: Place Vendôme in Paris; Talbot Yard in London of Canterbury Tales fame; Unter den Linden in Berlin; Gamla Stan in Stockholm; Nevskiy Prospekt in Saint Petersburg; Kärntnerstraße in Vienna. But then also Commonwealth Avenue in Boston; Palisades Park in Santa Monica; Nob Hill in San Francisco; The Mall in Washington.

And the French Quarter in New Orleans.

But that does not mean that I neglect other, more countrified areas: the back roads of Tuscany; the banks of the Rhine; the sea views from Land’s End, or Sagres; the Öresund circuit. Also the sea views from the cliffs on the Maine-Nova Scotia coast (“Savour the Sea”); climbing from Skagway and abandoned Dyea by car or train over the pass to Whitehorse; Route 66; Catalina.

And the Bayou Country west of New Orleans.

When we first drove to New Orleans and the Bayou Country on one of our long-haul drives in 1969, it was nice enough, but I have to admit I left feeling indifferent to the area. I have to put it largely to the intense summer heat and humidity we suffered through in a non-airconditioned van, where I first learned what “sultry weather” really means. We again went through the area on the Sunset Limited during the Nineties, but nothing awoke in me still.

I suppose it was nothing less than the devastating hurricanes in 2005 that brought my attention back to the area, Katrina on August 29, centering on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to its east, and then Rita just 26 days later on September 24, hitting west of New Orleans. Last year, in January, I took the Crescent to New Orleans, only planning on changing trains to the Sunset Limited to continue to El Paso, where I would walk across the border to visit Mexico. But that required an overnight in New Orleans, which I stretched into three nights. Why not see (and dine in) the city again after all these years? I hadn’t expected the cold weather that hit, but I loved every minute of it. Leaving on the Sunset Limited, it stopped in New Iberia. Wouldn’t it be nice to finally visit Avery Island, where Tabasco is made, after wanting to do so all these years? Also, someone I spoke to on the train said I should really try Mardi Gras, and thus developed this trip. As I’ve been saying, I wanted more to HAVE SEEN Mardi Gras than to SEE it, in the spirit of “Been there. Done it”. Mardi Gras falling this year on February 5, I scheduled five nights in N’awlinz through that date, and then four in the hinterlands. The result is that I not only continued to bond strongly to Nola’s history and restaurants, I bonded heavily to Bayou Country, including Acadiana (Cajun Country) and the region of the River Road Plantation Houses. Although many of my trips run for five weeks or so, these nine nights in (non-sultry) Louisiana, in near-perfect shirtsleeve weather, made me definitively hooked to the city and the area. Oh yeah, Mardi Gras took place while I was there, too. Fun.

Mardi Gras   Standing amid the hullabaloo of Mardi Gras, the quote occurred to me: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ....” Charles Dickens wrote these lines, some of the most famous opening lines in literature, in 1859, as he was talking about Paris during the French Revolution seventy years earlier in A Tale of Two Cities. I later looked up more of the quote:

Well, in my somewhat cynical, perhaps jaded, view, I could see these contrasts applying to my visit to Mardi Gras in New Orleans as well:

I suppose I’m just not big on big street festivals. I recently described our one (and believe me, ONLY) visit to the Sanfermines in Pamplona. Do I really need to see those idiots running away from the bulls for ninety seconds right after dawn and then carousing in the streets into the night? I remember going to Times Square on New Year’s Eve once (my sister says I had also gone once earlier, but I have no recollection of it). It was OK, but how often do you need to do that, especially with today’s strict security measures? Well, anyway, for both of those: Been there. Done it.

While Gasparilla in Tampa has no historic basis, and just portrays a “pirate invasion” for the fun of it, all carnival celebrations have a valid (and often forgotten) basis: the final celebration before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday. There are several explanations for the word carnival, but the most logical to me is carne vale, with vale being the Latin word for “farewell” and carne being either meat or flesh. Therefore, carnival is either “farewell to meat” before Lent, or “farewell to the flesh”, the last time to kick up your heels before Lent: let go of your everyday self. Somehow I don’t think today too many people today are thinking about the meat aspect.

[Note the variation in I, A, E spellings in the middle of “Carnival”, such as in Spanish and Portuguese “Carnaval”, Italian “Carnevale”, German “Karneval”.]

Carnival is typical of Roman Catholic countries, or regions of countries. The biggest in the world is in Rio de Janeiro, the one in Venice is famous, as is the one in Köln/Cologne, called Karneval. Elsewhere in Germany it’s called Fasching or Fastnacht. In 1962, studying in Mainz, we celebrated Fasching.

The Mardi Gras tradition began in France, and settled in several areas in French Louisiana, especially the three French colonial capitals. Mobile (Alabama) became the first capital of Louisiana in 1702 and by 1703 the first rudimentary celebration took place there. The capital was moved to Biloxi (Mississippi) in 1720, and the celebration also followed that year. New Orleans, which had been founded in 1718, became the capital of Louisiana in 1723. (Baton Rouge became the capital in 1846, after statehood.) Mardi Gras most likely followed to New Orleans as well, but the old records have been lost. In any case, Mardi Gras was in full swing in New Orleans by the 1820’s and 1830’s.

To paraphrase another expression, I’ll say that nothing exceeds like excess. Mardi Gras translates as “Fat Tuesday”, and the day before, Lundi Gras, is “Fat Monday”. I think the gras/fat is used to imply this excess.

I don’t really mean to appear so cynical. I enjoyed it for what it was. What it was, as I see it, divides three ways: social events, parades, partying. For locals, it’s a social event. There are all social levels of Mardi Gras clubs, called krewes (pronounced as crews) in New Orleans (also Tampa), which put on balls and prepare floats for the parades. Some of the upscale balls are quite posh. While in the Sheraton, I saw people getting ready to attend balls, women in gowns and men in white gloves and tails. I see this as a quite valid activity, for those who are interested.

For visitors, though, it’s a matter of seeing the many, many, many, many parades, and for those so inclined, partying. Celebrations and parades start weeks earlier, but during Mardi Gras weekend, the population of New Orleans doubles because of the visitors, and for the five days from Friday to Fat Tuesday, I was among them.

Parades take place starting in January, and also in surrounding areas, but the biggest and best fall in this weekend. Some are in the morning, reaching downtown by afternoon, and the afternoon ones reach downtown by evening. The routes vary, and maps are available, but are really not necessary, since the routes just vary slightly, covering Saint Charles Avenue and Canal Street, which are perpendicular to each other.

Saint Charles Avenue, of streetcar fame, comes in from the west, past the Garden District, then past Lafayette Square (which had been at one time the town square of a suburban village), and enters Canal Street. Parades then go either right (south) down Canal, or left (north) up Canal, but most do both, by first turning north on Canal for a few blocks then making a U-turn to the bottom of Canal to complete the route. Across (east of) Canal is the French Quarter. I stayed at the Sheraton on the west side of Canal, which had its plusses and minuses, as follows.

I couldn’t get the hotel free on Starpoints, since it was blacked out for Mardi Gras. However, there was an advantage to my booking far in advance, as there often is. The special Club Floors at the top, which rent at a premium, were being offered at the same rate as any other room, so I took them. Included were breakfast buffets and evening hors d’oeuvres in the Club Room.

My room was on the 47th floor, maybe two from the top, and faced north. I had a perfect view of Canal Street from above, including the intersection with Saint Charles, so I could watch any parade from above. The Club Room was on the 42nd floor, and faced south, to the Mississippi. On Lundi Gras evening, there were fireworks from a barge in the river. What was so very special about these otherwise normal fireworks was that, being up so high, we could see them from eye level. This was a first for me.

The negatives involved two things. Being a major hotel right on Canal Street, all entries and exits but the main one were closed, and all registered guests had to wear, and show, armbands to enter the building. Special security was everywhere in the building for the weekend, and I felt an atmosphere of being under attack.

The other negative were the barriers. Miles of police barriers were put up on either side of the parade routes, all along Saint Charles and Canal. You could get through them if there wasn’t a parade at the moment, but otherwise, it was like the Berlin Wall, with the French Quarter in East Berlin beyond Canal, and West Berlin being further subdivided north and south by the barriers on Saint Charles, with the Sheraton in the south-west quadrant. During an evening parade, you could maybe get across to the Quarter if you walked way out of your way around the parade routes; sometimes you couldn’t and had to wait for up to an hour when there was a break in the parade and the police opened the barriers. Attempting to bring your car would have been folly. The airport limo could drop me off at the Sheraton on arrival because no parade had started yet. Otherwise, it would have been impossible. When I needed a taxi to go to dine at Commander’s Palace in the Garden District, I was told to walk blocks away to Harrah’s Casino, where I could finally get one. Coming back, the taxi got jammed in traffic, and I paid and got out at Lafayette Square, which turned out to be a fortunate event, described in a moment.

The parades seem incessant. At first I thought they were all the same, but then I did see differences. Some krewes came from working-class neighborhoods and their floats were correspondingly simple; those of other krewes were more elaborate, and themed. I particularly remember one parade which had “cocktails” as a theme, and I can remember the Grasshopper float.

But if you’re picturing parades like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Saint Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue, the Philadelphia Mummers’ Parade, or the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena (I’ve only seen the Saint Patrick’s one in person), Mardi Gras parades are nothing like them. While all parades have marching bands, the other parades have floats for show. Mardi Gras floats are secondarily for “show”. Primarily, they are for “throw”.

Every float in every parade was long and quite high. On each side was a lower and an upper row for participants to stand. The participants, usually masked and always costumed, were members of the krewe that organized that particular parade. They had one function: throw, throw, throw. The “throws” could be plastic coins, frisbees, toy footballs, tiny teddy bears, themed shopping bags.

But those were minor, and often disregarded by onlookers. The prize throws were BEADS, BEADS, BEADS!!! I started calling Mardi Gras the Bead-o-rama. In Tampa, and sometimes in New Orleans, they were smaller (plastic) bead necklaces, necklaces of a size that people would really wear, with beads of perhaps ¼ inch in size, 0.5 cm. But in New Orleans, bead size grew and grew. Quite common were ½-inch beads, 1 cm, and frequent were ¾-inch beads, about 1.7 cm. These are brightly-colored, metallic beads. While many necklaces came down only to the chest, waist-length were quite common, and crotch-length were not rare. I had two that came down to my knees. Now these are what you call beads!

Catching beads will never be an Olympic sport. I’d imagine that even statue with an upraised arm will end up catching beads. There were beads on the streetcar power lines along the route, and hanging from trees on Saint Charles. Broken and rejected necklaces clogged the gutters and crunched underfoot. I learned early on that, even if you didn’t want any beads (???), you had to raise one, better both, hands to just protect yourself. I got hit in the head twice with some heavy beads before I learned that, and a young father in front of me got hit right in the face (all was well). On Canal one evening, I was wearing a white shirt with at that point only one string of white beads, so I was dressed white-on-white. A young lady came up to me and put a bright red necklace around my neck, saying I needed a bit of color. So that’s the spirit of Mardi Gras, I suppose.

Every day I’d bring my growing bead collection back to my room. Leaving town, my suitcase was noticeably heavier. Once back in Tampa, I piled all the beads, plus the small Tampa bead collection, into a shoebox to distribute to my five great-grandnieces in New York. I got on the scale both holding, and then not holding, the shoebox, and found I had 12.5 pounds, 5.7 kilograms, of beads. And that was not even trying hard to get beads, since some would hit the ground, and you’d find over-catches of beads hanging from the fences for the taking.

On Friday night I saw the Hermes, d’Etat, and Morpheus parades, which followed each other to form one big parade, which is often the case. Saturday night was when I got out of the taxi in Lafayette Square which is bordered on the other side by Saint Charles, where the Endymion parade was still passing. It was fun, and a bit quirky, since it was the only parade that was going outbound, westward from Canal Street to the far end of Saint Charles. The lighting around the square gave a unique glow to this parade, and it sticks in my mind better than the others. I remember looking to my left at a float that had just passed, and in the glow of the streetlights, you could see most clearly the flood of beads almost shooting out of each side of the float. It reminded me of water coming out of both sides of a fireboat in the Hudson River, and is an image that will remain with me.

When Endymion finished, I had to walk back maybe fifteen minutes down Saint Charles to Canal, and I was privileged to witness one of the more interesting of the “parades”: the cleanup crew. An army of streetsweeper machines and trucks started going down Saint Charles. On the sidewalks were guys with leaf blowers, and wooden rakes. This “parade” was a lot of fun to see.

Sunday I watched parades from the 47th floor while at the laptop, but then I had to go have some “fun” and did go to Bacchus in the evening. Monday was Lundi Gras, and I saw Orpheus in the evening. Tuesday was of course Mardi Gras, and I saw the Zulu parade, followed by the Elks later.

I chatted with people around me at the barriers. One was a woman from Wales who wanted to see the spectacle. But I remember particularly a woman who said she was from Dallas/Fort Worth, and has come to Mardi Gras for the past twenty years or so, minus one or two. This was beyond me. Five days of parades were already too much, but why come again year after year? I don’t go to Times Square every New Year’s Eve even though I’m right there, and those people on TV do seem to be having their “fun”.

So much for the parades. Now for the partyers. On Saint Charles, there were locals and visitors watching the parades, and things were fine, given the large crowds. The same for Canal and most of the Quarter, although there, you would see more people walking around with open drinks and “celebrating”, but it was largely harmless for the most part.

It is of course Bourbon Street in the Quarter where the partyers congregate, but frankly, it was also fun, I’ll grudgingly admit. All the cross streets in the Quarter come right off Canal, including Bourbon, and the very first evening, I walked over to Bourbon to see what was happening. The streets in the Quarter have converted townhouses in them, many with balconies one flight, and sometimes also two flights, up, where people were attending parties. Crowds mostly with drinks in hand, were milling through the street, since Bourbon Street is Party Center, and once again, it was Bead-o-rama. Everyone in the street wanted beads from those on the balconies, and it was kind of fun.

I went over to Bourbon once or twice during my stay, and on Mardi Gras night itself, after dinner at Brennan’s, I walked up to see what the last night on Bourbon would be like. The crowds were a lot thicker, since it was soon to be over. A woman on a balcony was holding a long gold necklace with large beads, and was jokingly contemplating who of those below she would throw it down to. I joined in the waving, and she threw it right to me, and I caught it, so I nodded to her in thanks. Nice.

I had heard that Mardi Gras is over, unquestionably, at the stroke of midnight, as Ash Wednesday begins (sometimes called Trash Wednesday). I went up to a policewoman at about 10 PM to ask her about it. She says it was worth seeing. A row of mounted police goes down Bourbon Street, clearing the people away. She praised the job the horses did, and said I should see it. It was tempting, but I declined. I didn’t want to wait two more hours, and I also didn’t want to be among those being cleared away. Yet as I tried to go down the last couple of blocks of Bourbon back to Canal, at that hour, the drink-holding, bead-catching crowd had become so thick that I gave up and cut over to Royal Street to get to Canal instead. Trying to penetrate the crowd for those last two blocks would have been like trying to negotiate two rush-hour subway cars from end to end.

Would I go to Mardi Gras again? No. Maybe not. Well, at least, not until next time. But I’d never say I’d seen New Orleans if I had been there just during Mardi Gras. If I were ever to go to Mardi Gras again, I’d come just for its last two days or so, then have a couple of “normal” days in this wonderful town afterward. As it was, I had to squeeze in my “normal” activities of seeing the city and getting some good meals in between the parades and the barriers.

New Orleans   As to my visiting Nola. I did two things I hadn’t done before: riding the streetcars and seeing the Garden District. I also repeated the ferry trip I’d done last year, but now in much more comfortable weather.

There was time on Monday to see the city, since no parades were scheduled on Lundi Gras until Orpheus in the evening, allowing for a welcome breather. Still, I was concerned to what extent the normal course of things would nevertheless be interrupted. I bought a day pass for all transportation (a bargain), and wanted to ride the three streetcar lines: Canal Street, Riverside, and the famous Saint Charles. Well, I suppose two out of three isn’t bad.

Normally, the Canal Street car would connect through to the Riverside line, but was temporarily foreshortened because of the parade routes. Still, I took the Canal Street car all the way to one of its northern terminuses, the Cemeteries. On arrival, without even entering the cemeteries, you could see the trademark above-ground tombs, which are typical due to the high water table. Later in the day, I also took the Riverside car its full length, mostly along the French Quarter. The disappointment was that the famous Saint Charles line would not be running until Ash Wednesday, the day I was leaving.

But then, there was an interesting twist. There was something very quirky about the two lines I rode, and I’ll use the Canal car to illustrate. Remember the unique name given locally for any median down a main avenue, “neutral ground”, based on the fact that originally the French were in the Quarter east of Canal, the American settlers were to the west of Canal, including the Garden District, and Canal served as, well, a neutral ground. Well, for both lines I rode, loading should have taken place from the left, the neutral ground side, yet the motorman would stop the car and have passengers walk in front and enter from the right. This seemed a very odd, and potentially dangerous, way to do this, but a little inquiry not only got an answer, but a pleasing fact. The historic red cars for Canal and Riverside had been flooded out by Katrina and were being restored. What I had been riding on both lines were the historic green Saint Charles rolling stock from 1920, which had been pressed into service, so I at least got to ride those cars, if not that line. As it turns out, along Saint Charles, loading is from the right, which explained this temporary boarding quirk.

To get to the Garden District down Saint Charles Avenue, I had to swallow my pride and board (ugh!) a bus that was temporarily replacing the streetcars. For the record, I’ll remind that the Saint Charles streetcar line dates from 1835, has just celebrated its 173rd anniversary, is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the US, and the cars are moving National Historic Landmarks, like the cable cars in San Francisco. The line is still being repaired after Katrina, and only in December was the rebuilt infrastructure extended as far as Napoleon Avenue (beyond the Garden District), with the rest scheduled to be operational later this year. The whole line runs 13 miles from Canal Street to Carrolton Avenue in the Carrolton neighborhood, which was originally a resort town, served by the Carrolton Railroad, the forerunner of this streetcar line.

Saint Charles Avenue, especially in the Garden District, which is about 15 minutes by (ugh!) bus from Canal, is wide and beautiful, and overhung by enormous live-oak trees. It’s lined on both sides with antebellum and Victorian mansions, so it’s a good introduction to what is to be seen deeper into the Garden District, whose most interesting core is some half-dozen or more blocks wide, and runs five blocks down to Magazine Street, which is also of interest. I had downloaded a walking tour from the internet, which I used to find the most interesting houses. Greek Revival and Italianate styles predominate. They were mostly erected in the mid-19C for American newcomers who were snubbed out of the French Quarter (remember that neutral ground in Canal Street!). Although some of the houses are indeed mansions, many are just large, comfortable houses, and most do have gardens of some sort. The houses here were meant to contrast with townhouses in the Quarter that were less likely to have gardens. My impression is that it was named the Garden District primarily to brag to the French that they had detached houses rather than the closer-together town houses of the French Quarter.

I ended this walk near the Commander’s Palace restaurant, to which I’d taken a taxi two nights earlier. Across the way were the high walls of the Lafayette Cemetery of 1833, which was about two blocks square. I stepped inside to see the above-ground tombs, and happened to meet the head custodian, who ended up giving me an impromptu tour, along with a lesson about how things were done here. The marble on the front of a tomb unscrews, and the bricks behind it are temporarily broken away for additional interments. Since one family had removed their ancestors’ remains to Michigan, he regularly used their open tomb for instructional purposes. There was an upper and lower chamber. They abide by the traditional burial philosophy of minimal preservation efforts. Burials take place with the simplest of wooden caskets, which are sure to deteriorate as quickly as possible. If a new burial is to take place, the tomb is opened, remaining wood is discarded, and residual human remains, often of a number of people, are bagged and replaced in the back of the tomb. A burial cannot be disturbed for a year and a day. If a family member dies in that period, they have to be given a temporary burial until that time period is over. Their policy seems very practical and sensible.

Down on Magazine Street I took the (ugh!) bus back to Canal, and later on I once again took the free ferry across the Mississippi. During Mardi Gras it doesn’t carry cars, so most people went down onto the car deck to enjoy the weather and unobstructed view. Before it left, we were able to enjoy the antics of two pelicans, the Louisiana state bird, swimming in the water. There were some steamboats nearby used to give rides, and we enjoyed the Natchez steaming by and giving us a toot. While waiting for the departure, a cruise ship that was docked slightly upstream pulled out. It turned out to be the Carnival Fantasy, and that company’s name seemed particularly appropriate for Mardi Gras (Carnival now also owns Cunard). It was nice to be on the water in the late afternoon.

Restaurants   I had booked five restaurants in advance for my five nights. Using my scale of Standard (-modest, -midlevel, -superior) and Gourmet, I would call Commander’s Palace as Standard-superior. It’s located in the Garden District in an 1880 Victorian mansion with turrets, and the name is misleading. Nobody was in command of anything--it was named after one Émile Commander. In 1970 it was taken over by the Brennan family of Brennan’s restaurant. Among other things I enjoyed a gumbo (I need a daily fix when in town), and for dessert I had an outstanding banana-bread-pudding soufflé. Commander’s Palace has been voted the most popular restaurant in New Orleans for quite a number of years. Not only was my waiter very chatty, but so were two others, who came by to talk, as did the woman managing the floor. I was told that they like to offer lone diners an after-dinner drink on the house, which was very nice of them. I’m considering starting to bill myself as The Lone Diner. That has a certain flair, don’t you think? Also, if a Texas Ranger working without the help of other Rangers can bill himself as the Lone Ranger, I think I’ll start being The Lone Traveler, too.

Everywhere else I ate was in the Quarter, which I prefer. I went back to Galatoire’s (Standard-superior), and I think I always will. Zagat gives it a whopping 27 (out of 30) for food, but I like the homey atmosphere too, and the signature green stenciling on walls of the main room (it looks like wallpaper). As a drink I had a Sazerac there, a typical Nola cocktail, and Galatoire’s signature Oysters Rockefeller. The main course was eggplant stuffed with shrimp and crabmeat. When ordering, I bewailed the fact that I’d have no room for gumbo, so the waitress slipped me a small sample between courses. I like Galatoire’s.

The other “name” restaurant I went to was Brennan’s, on Mardi Gras day. It was quite full, but I think I enjoyed their signature “Breakfast at Brennan’s” more last year. I would rate it Standard-midlevel.

Then came my two “finds”, which I had discovered online. One block north of Bourbon Street is Dauphine, which has a small passage off it called Calle Bayona, a remnant from the Spanish days. Even though the name is Spanish, the passage was named after a French city, and means Bayonne Street (Yes, I know there’s one in New Jersey, too.) At the juncture of Dauphine and Bayona is “Bayona” a Gourmet restaurant for which chef Susan Spicer has an entire wall of awards. Bayona gets a Zagat rating of 28 (!!!) for food, so this one’s a keeper for next time.

One block south of Bourbon is Royal, and another half-block beyond that is a three-block cross street called Exchange Place, totally deserted at night, even during Mardi Gras. Hidden here—I mean it—is the Pelican Club, which is a true gem. It has a very cozy, clubby, upscale atmosphere, yet remains very down-to-earth. It’s another keeper for me. But there was one problem, and it was my fault. I had had half a muffuletta that afternoon, and I just wasn’t hungry enough. I had my gumbo, and had to pass on the rest, including their cioppino. Cioppino (cho.PI.no) is like a French bouillabaisse or a Portuguese cataplana—a selection of seafood in a hearty sauce, usually served at table in a large pot. Even more tempting, this was billed as a “Louisiana Cioppino”. Well, that’s something on my list for next time.

The Pelican Club was kind enough to give me a necklace of beads with a plastic Pelican Club pendant on it. At the Zulu parade, I caught a Zulu necklace with a named pendant dated 2008, and later when visiting Houma House plantation, they gave out named necklaces to show you’d paid the entrance fee. I’m planning on holding on to these three sets of beads.

As I did last year, in the afternoon I went to Central Grocery on Decatur in the Quarter, where the muffuletta sandwich was invented. It’s a round, dish-size loaf of Italian bread (10 inches / 25 cm), layered with cold cuts and then a layer of olive salad. This was first done when it was felt to be easier to put the salad into the sandwich rather than eating it along with it. Half a sandwich is enough, actually enough to ruin your appetite to eat at the Pelican Club. Central Grocery is Standard-modest.

For the first time I got me a genuine New Orleans Po’ Boy, and recommended to me was Johnny’s (Standard-modest), right off Decatur. The Po’ Boy is similar to a sub, hero, or grinder elsewhere, but Po’ Boys (Poor Boys) are made with Louisiana French bread.

I also HAD to go to the Café du Monde (Standard-modest) again. Twice. These times, since it wasn’t freezing like last year, the outside terrace was filled, but I easily found space inside. Again, you order beignets (ben.YAYS), and get three pastries so light that if you let go, they might float away like balloons. The signature here is to have them swamped in huge mounds of confectioner’s sugar, most of which you have to shake off. I believe it is an impossibility to leave the Café du Monde without having to brush sugar off your clothes. I recommend not wearing black, as I did.

The coffee you get is flavored with chicory, and has a great flavor. Chicory has a reputation of being a wartime replacement—ersatz coffee—and that might be how the German word Ersatz entered English, but it makes a nice cup of coffee when blended with regular coffee. My research shows that it’s chicory roots that are roasted and ground and, as they say, used as a coffee substitute or additive. Apparently it is visibly undistinguishable from regular coffee.

But then came the surprise. The leaves of this same type of chicory plant are used in salads, where they go under the name of radicchio. Also, this same type, and related types of chicory, also go into salads under the name of endive.

Gulf Coast   After five days of Mardi Gras, Wednesday was a driving day. It was time to leave town to travel west, except that I did some add-ons and went east instead first. Before leaving town, I wanted to drive through some neighborhoods to see what devastation was still visible, but I found that the bus tour last year knew just where to go, so I didn’t see as much as I had expected. I did drive over to the Lower Ninth Ward and up toward Lake Pontchartrain, and did see repaired walls around the canals that had flooded.

Going toward the Lower Ninth Ward, I did come across a very famous street by chance. After passing a Piety Street, the next one was Desire Street. I had read some time ago that it was in a rather hardscrabble neighborhood, and so it was. When Tennessee Williams lived in the French Quarter in the late 1940’s, a streetcar whose last stop was Desire Street rolled nearby down Royal Street, and he used it as his title: A Streetcar Named Desire. It is so highly ironic that that streetcar line was closed down only about a year after he made it legendary. There is even further irony in that today, there is merely (ugh!) a bus named Desire.

I rode north on Elysian Fields Avenue. It’s a rather normal street, nothing like the one in Paris with the same name in French: l’Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

My purpose in swinging north was to cross the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. These are two parallel bridges that are the longest bridges in the world by total length, about 24 miles/38 kilometers. They carry 42,000 cars a day. The southbound one (1956) was the original before the northbound one (1969) was added. A double toll is collected southbound only, so I got a free ride. While crossing, you have the feeling of being at sea.

I could have proceeded back to New Orleans around the lakeshore, but I had decided relatively recently that I wanted to visit the Gulf Coast instead. Biloxi (Mississippi) was only an hour-and-a-quarter away, and Mobile (Alabama) only 50 minutes beyond that. I wanted to see how Biloxi in particular was recovering from Katrina, and what its gambling was like, but I also have gotten back deeply into a whole series of John Grisham novels, whose action usually takes place in Mississippi, mostly in the fictional town of Clanton supposedly in the north, but also in Biloxi. One enters Gulfport first, which is a twin city to Biloxi on the coast. The shore road had great views of sandy beaches, but most of them were still being repaired. In Biloxi (the spelling varies with reality: what looks like “lox” is pronounced “lux”). I stopped where they’re still repairing Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis home famously damaged by Katrina. The area of the casinos, several of which have already been rebuilt, looks surprisingly upscale and resort-like, with none of the seediness I expected.

Mobile sits high above its bay. The old part of town has some charm, with the occasional wrought-iron balconies. The central square was peaceful, but I found some beads left in the grass from the day before, so I know Mardi Gras had been celebrated here as well. I visited, and am including, both Mobile and Biloxi here, since they were past capitals of Louisiana.

Then I had a long haul. It was two hours back to New Orleans, where I arrived in rush hour, then over the bridge high above the Mississippi. I tried driving a bit to the south to see the area where the Mississippi goes down that long, slender peninsula, like soda through a straw, into the Gulf of Mexico, but the roads allow you to see little to nothing. I suspect one would have to take a cruise ship in or out of New Orleans to properly see the end of the Mississippi. I then had two more hours driving west to New Iberia in darkness. My driving day had come to something like 450 miles / 724 kilometers, but the final three days of the trip in the western hinterlands of New Orleans would prove to be among the best of the trip, and would give me an entire new area to bond to.