From haunted cemeteries to lively jazz halls, New Orleans is a city you must explore on foot. Photo / 123rf
Named as one of America’s most walkable cities, New Orleans has charm by the bucket load. Take a walking tour of the city and you’ll understand why it’s considered a living museum, writes Fiona Harper.
“If there’s not enough room for a new body in the tomb, it’s stored in one of these wall vaults until the body decomposes and makes room for another,” says my guide Karen from Two Chicks Walking Tours. “It might take a year. Maybe longer,” she shrugs. Weather also plays a part in decomposition, which Louisiana’s tropical climate tends to fast-track.
In front of the moss-adorned ornate stucco tombs and mausoleums, some the size of a family caravan, is a path shaded by gnarly trees. To my right, there’s a long stone wall lined with 500-odd sealed doors stacked four high. These wall vaults are essentially a filing system for the deceased. Protected by an elaborate wrought iron gate, Lafayette Cemetery No.1 looks like it’s straight out of a Gothic horror movie. I’m ghoulishly fascinated by this city of the dead and ask a thousand questions.
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Local tradition stipulates that burial tombs cannot be opened for at least one year and one day after a body has been entombed. A year is long enough to allow for adequate decomposition of the corpse. When a new body is to be entombed, the remains of the most recent corpse are moved into the receiving vault in the bottom of the tomb, called the caveau. After making room for the ‘new’ body which has been waiting its turn in the wall vault, it is relocated to the tomb with all the ceremonial accoutrements. Conveniently, there’s now a free place in the wall vault to house the next family member who meets their demise.
Low-lying Louisiana has limited real estate capacity for the deceased. It’s been the case since the French sailed up the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico back in the early 18th century and established what is now New Orleans. Thanks to surrounding lakes, deltas and floodplains, much of the city lies below sea level. In-ground burials risk coffins dislodging from the ground during flood events – not ideal for either the living or the deceased. Other than cremation, the only other option is for the deceased to be “buried” in flood-proof above-ground tombs.
There are more tha 40 historic cemeteries across New Orleans, many smack bang amid the domestic surrounds of residential neighbourhoods. The city was named one of the country’s top 10 walkable cities by USA Today. It’s no surprise.
I could spend hours wandering the leafy streets lined with opulent mansions in the Garden District. Karen shares a backstory on the area that was established by cashed-up Yankee shipping magnates, cotton and tobacco plantation owners. Shunned as nouveau rich by the French and Creole society of the French Quarter, they established their own neighbourhood. Mansions rose from large plots of land with extravagant manicured gardens. Over time, lots have been divided into smaller land parcels so that grand 19th-century manors sit alongside late Victorian mansions. It’s an intriguing mishmash of palatial homes through varying architectural periods.
In a precinct noted for famous residents, horror author Anne Rice’s 1850s Greek Revival multi-columned mansion is known as Claiborne Cottage and was built for the daughter of Louisiana’s first governor. The home inspired novels such as Interview with the Vampire and The Witching Hour. More recently, Mayfair Witches (a TV series adapted from Rice’s novels) was shot on location a few doors down from her former First Street home. In Jackson Avenue, the Buckner Mansion starred in American Horror Story: Coven. The Women’s Guild of the New Orleans Opera Association is headquartered in an 1850s Greek Revival home on Prytania St. A few doors down, esteemed pharmacist to wealthy neighbours, Englishman Robert Girling’s apothecary was conveniently located opposite Layfayette Cemetery No.1.
New Orleans is not just about history. It’s also a foot-tapping throb of music, dancing, food and good times. Oh, and it’s about alcohol too. Aptly named Bourbon St is the night-time hub, fuelled by an “open container law” that permits anyone to walk around the French Quarter with an alcoholic drink in hand. Buy a to-go cup from a window-hawking drink vendor and you’re set.
Keen to explore NOLA’s fun side, I hook up with Nate from Dr Gumbo at Red Fish Grill in Bourbon St and embark upon a Cocktail and Food History Tour. The tour challenges my low alcohol tolerance, but it doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm.
“I hope you brought your appetite and your thirst!” Nate says, laughing, as he orders my first cocktail, a Pimms Cup. We visit six cocktail lounges, restaurants and bars, sampling Creole cuisine and slurping our way through a further four cocktails (after a Hurricane and French 75 I stop taking notes and simply soak up the street vibe). I resist the opportunity to drink as we walk (there are some rules - containers must be plastic not glass), but I cannot resist the music that emanates from every open window and doorway. Multi-ensemble jazz bands billow out on to the pavement. Traffic stops as dancers spill on to the roadway. The city of jazz lives up to its lively reputation. And then some.
As our walking tour ends, I slip inside tiny Preservation Hall, which is packed to the rafters with music lovers. Anticipation is palpable in the minimalist concert hall devoid of any fittings or furnishings beyond a handful of bench seats. The hall is the spiritual home of New Orleans jazz, with a jazz performance playing for 360 nights a year since the 1960s. The jazz is loud and raw and ballsy and bluesy and it does not stop for more than an hour. Musicians wander in and out nonchalantly, some playing, others there simply for the love of being among fellow musos. The timber floorboards throb. The foot-stomping, hollering and cheering crowd laps up every single note. I don’t want to leave. The grimy walls reverberate with the soul of a thousand tunes.
Actually, I was wrong. New Orleans is about the history. It’s a living breathing museum that gets under your skin and lodges in your heart.
GETTING THERE
Air NZ, American Airlines and United all fly from Auckland to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport with one stopover.
DETAILS
Stay: Windsor Court Hotel – luxe digs that are within easy walking distance from the French Quarter
Play: Two Chicks Walking Tours and Dr Gumbo Historic Food and Cocktail Tour
Don’t miss: Preservation Hall for raw traditional jazz at its absolute finest.
neworleans.com
The writer was a guest of New Orleans & Company
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