Easter in New Orleans (I)

After the slightly cold spring break in Iowa two weeks ago, we decided to try our luck and go to New Orleans, Louisiana over the Easter weekend. It was a great choice, temperatures around 20-25°C, sun, and a great city made up for a good weekend.

We started in Knoxville on Thursday around 6, a little but still ok. Since we booked our hotel in NOLA for Friday and Saturday night, we knew we have to stay somewhere before we hit the city. Our first target was Birmingham, which we quickly dismissed after we realized that we can go much further than that in one day. We ended up in a (non-recommendable) motel in Picayun, Mississippi, a small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

In the morning we stopped at a gas station and I spotted this sign, I could not withstand taking a picture of it.

It took us about an hour to finally reach NOLA around 11. After we checked into our hotel in Downtown New Orleans, we went for a walk to explore the city. This was probably the first time I realized, that this city is so prominent for Jazz music. Call me ignorant, but I never had this connection in mind.

We walked down St Charles Ave. and came across this place to take this picture: Here you see three important things of New Orleans! The old trams, the Ogdens Museum of Art, and the National World War II Museum. Of those three, we only took a ride in the tram, since we didn't have time for more (the weather was too nice to spend time inside).

Along the streets there a many of these Southern style houses, reminded me of Savannah and Charleston.

Leftovers from Mardi Gras...

Christ Church on St. Charles...

We came across La Fayette cemetery, a very peaceful and old cemetery. Note that the first name is Preuss and that it states in German that she was born in the province of Posen, now belonging to Poland.

Even if the beetle in the background doesn't look like that, it was still registered and had an up-to-date license plate.

Spotted in a shop, very cute!

Apparently, there is a street called Jena, again one of the towns near where I grew up :)

Another pretty old church!

Our final goal for the day was the Audubon Park, a huge park in the outskirts of the city. I think it was the first time I spotted a turtle in the wild!

A luck shot of this beautiful butterfly.

We ended up taking the tram back to the hotel. After a longer break we went out to explore the night-life, but more on that later ;)