Things to Do in New Orleans

Not your typical attraction, the LaLaurie House is one New Orleans icon that is usually viewed in something of a different light. Part of any good New Orleans ghost tour, the LaLaurie House history is far from pristine or pretty, though the house itself is beautiful.
Once home to the wealthy socialite, slave-owner, and serial killer Marie Delphine LaLaurie (aka Madame LaLaurie), a fire in the late 1834 brought to light (quite literally) the skeletons in the LaLaurie’s closets. Seemingly supernatural stories of great horror were unearthed here, where the LaLauries committed acts of unspeakable brutality and torture upon their slaves. Iron collars, disfigurement, and other mechanisms of torture occurred here that were so gruesome that stories about them continue to this day.

During the fire, Madame LaLaurie fled, an enraged mob destroyed all but the very walls of the place, and later tenants (including Nicholas Cage) restored it. Today the house is occupied, though it is rumored to be the single most haunted spot in New Orleans. Any tour that visits the LaLaurie House and tells of the horror that occurred here will make you believe that this is true.

Fun for all ages, the Louisiana Children’s Museum has got everything you need to entertain you and your young ones for hours on end. Over 30,000 square feet of fun with everything that might spark interest or creativity, in the Louisiana Children’s Museum not only do kids get to be kids, but adults get to have fun and partake as well. Play shop in the Little Winn-Dixie grocery store, pretend to captain a tug boat down the mighty Mississippi with a working crane, launch ping-pong balls off of self-made rollercoaster ramps, take apart modern technology, or leave a lasting impression in the glow-in-the-dark booth. Arts and crafts are also encouraged, as the museum’s ethos is to educate as well as entertain.

If stone bridges, botanical gardens, sculpture, theme parks, hundreds of centuries-old oak trees and numerous waterways are indicative of a good park, then consider New Orleans City Park one of the best city parks in the world. Over 1300 acres of sprawling land comprises this park, making it the sixth-largest urban park in the United States and a routine stop for family fun. Distinguished by a large menu of activities, whether it’s stopping in the Carousel Gardens Amusement Park, renting a boat or bike to see some preserved bayou, walking the sculpture gardens, golfing, playing tennis, fishing, or just relaxing in the park on a picnic, a day spent in New Orleans’ City Park is always a good time.

Located on the outlying border of the famous French Quarter, the Louis Armstrong Park is a lovely 32 acre haven, full of beautiful grassy knolls, lagoons, and cultural auditoriums and structures that are everything jazz.

In the southern corner of the park is the historic Congo Square, a cobblestone laden open space that was used in the 17th century as a gathering point, where African-American slaves came to socialize and make music, one of the earliest signs of African influence in jazz.

Behind the square lay a plethora of buildings such as the Mahalia Jackson Center for the Performing Arts, Jazz National Historical Park, and the recently renovated Perseverance Hall, where there is now a jazz exhibit and a line of scheduled performances throughout the year. All these places and more are a testament to Louisiana’s long and prospering music tradition in the face of oppression and hard times.

Bordered by Chartres, St. Peter, St. Ann and Decatur Streets near the Mississippi River in the French Quarter, Jackson Square is a colorful city plaza and home to the elegant St. Louis Cathedral. A National Historic Landmark, the square attracts visitors and locals who gather to listen to street performers and buskers, have their palm read by a gypsy, browse the shops, have a chicory coffee and beignet at Café du Monde or just relax under a tree while life in the French Quarter moves around them.

Jackson Square is a great place to pick up some local art, as well. Artists must have permits to sell their work in the square, and only 200 are issued annually, meaning you’ll be browsing through pieces by legitimate and talented artists. Across Chartres Street sits the Cabildo, the 18th-century building where the Louisiana Purchase was signed.

Steeped in history far richer than the former plantation owners could have dreamed of owning, the Laura Plantation lies just beyond the reaches of the Greater New Orleans area. Originally built in 1804 by a French naval veteran of the American Revolution by the name of Guillaume Duparc, the plantation was erected on the site of an old Colapissa Indian village. A Creole-owned sugar plantation, the Laura Plantation differed from most plantations in its Code Noir ethics, its somewhat removed societal circumstances, and its beautiful sprawling sugar plantation landscape. Touring this iconographic plantation, you’ll learn the difference between Creoles and Cajuns, hear chilling ghost stories, and see how a bygone way of life now heralds itself as one of the top Louisiana cultural attractions.

Walking up the steps and through the imposing Doric columns and impressive classical façade, you wouldn’t know that the New Orleans Museum of Art began over 100 years from very humble origins. First erected in 1911, the city’s oldest fine art museum then housed only a paltry nine works of art. What is now one of the greatest art collections in the American South, today the New Orleans Museum of Art houses almost 40,000 objects on permanent display and is heralded for its impressive collection of French, American, African, and Japanese art, as well as its extensive photography showings, and glass works. The grounds themselves are part of the display, and visitors can stroll the five-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden where they’ll find over 60 sculptures situated on beautifully landscaped footpaths strewn with ancient live oak trees and rippling lagoons.

If you’re at the Port of New Orleans, you’re most like beginning or ending your cruise, so get there a day early or stick around afterward for a chance to explore the Big Easy.

The French Quarter is, of course, the main attraction, but if you’ve been there, done that, take a shore excursion into the countryside to see some of Louisiana’s grand plantation homes, or experience the swampy waterways on an airboat tour.

How to Get to New Orleans

You’ll dock downtown at either the Julia Street or Erato Street terminal. Both terminals are on the Riverfront Trolley Line, which will take you a mile up the Mississippi River to the French Quarter.

One Day in New Orleans

Before diving right into the liveliness (or downright madness, depending on when you’re there) of the French Quarter, start your day in New Orleans’ peaceful Audubon Park, 6 miles (10 km) west of the city center and home to the Audubon Zoo. Explore the park from the river up to St Charles Avenue, where you’ll begin heading east, back toward the city.

Go back to the 19th century as you walk along St Charles Avenue, known for its mansions and towering oak trees. When you get tired, hop on the St Charles Streetcar, which will take you all the way back to Canal Street on the edge of the French Quarter.

Spend the rest of your afternoon and evening in the French Quarter, snapping photos of the iconic wrought-iron architecture, admiring St Louis Cathedral, listening to jazz, drinking Hurricanes at establishments along Bourbon Street, and indulging in coffee and beignets at Café du Monde on Jackson Square.

Few other places on earth can claim a cemetery as both an interesting tourist destination and a cultural icon. New Orleans’ elevation is technically a negative number, so the early settlers to the area had trouble with the bodies of their recently interned washing away come the summer rains. The settlers quickly learned that the only way to properly keep their dead in place was to build raised cemeteries, and thus the tradition of New Orleans’ raised cemeteries took hold. Lafayette Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in New Orleans, and this nearly 200 year-old attraction has a history that goes beyond the raised cement graves. Ripe with ghost stories and notable New Orleans elites, the Lafayette Cemetery, as any tour guide will tell you, holds the remains of only “Americans,” while the also popular St. Louis Cemetery houses what is left of the Creoles.

In New Orleans’ French Quarter lies the Napoleon House, a monument to the city’s illustrious heritage and culinary tradition. Built in 1814 by former Mayor Nicholas Girod, the property is most famous for supposedly being offered by the mayor to Napoleon Bonaparte as a refuge after the Frenchman’s exile in 1821. Napoleon never made it to the house, but the name stuck and the building became one of the most famous bars and cafes in the city.