A Different View of The French Quarter

The next day we took another fabulous walking tour of the French Quarter.....the more residential side. This part was more clean and quiet...it had upscale shops and boutiques. We learned a lot about New Orleans' history and architecture....so get a cup of coffee or glass of wine...here's what we learned! The Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba came to New Orleans from Paris in the late 1840's after surviving an attack on her life by her father-in-law who shot her 4 times...amazingly, surviving with one bullet still lodged in her chest and the loss of two fingers on her left hand.

She eventually separated from her husband and began her work in transforming the old center of New Orleans...she developed her property, later to be named Jackson Square, supervising much of the construction herself..designing the green space with flowers, bushes, and trees. She also built the hybrid English and French style apartment buildings surrounding the square. The baroness was indeed a very modern and visionary woman for the times. In the scroll work of the the galleries, she adorned the wrought iron with an emblem incorporating her initials.

With regards to the architecture, we learned about the different designs and names of the types of buildings we were looking at...the first was a Spanish Colonial which boasted of two floors...the bottom windows had arches and there was a garden in the middle.

The next style of architecture was French Colonial which used stucco for its construction..here is a picture of the Urselines Convent

We learned the difference between a balcony and gallery...A gallery is supported by posts around the building and a balcony is supported by the building itself..who knew!!

On some galleries you will find spikes on the top and bottom of the wrought iron...these spikes are called Romeo spikes which were supposed to serve as a deterrent for any suitors wanting to romance the owner's daughter.

Another tidbit that our tour guide Daniel told us was that a wealthy recluse, John McDonough, left money in his will to the city of New Orleans for the purposes of building non segregated public schools. Over 30 schools bearing his name and number were built. Here is a picture of the McDonough Public School 15 where Richard Simmons and Lee Harvey Oswald attended! Wow!

We passed by the famous Lafitte Blacksmith Shop and Bar...it is the oldest structure in the United States used as a bar...at night it is only lit by candle light.

Some other types of architecture we saw was a Creole Cottage which has 4 doors in the front and back with a pitched roof.

A Shot Gun House is a long home on a small parcel of land with one window and a door in front. There are no hallways or closets..they were built this way to save on taxes.

We, unfortunately, were not able to visit the Congo Square at the Armstrong Park...this is where Jazz was born! The slaves used their percussion instruments combined with the brass instruments to come up the the new sound of music! We did, however, visit the French Market which had a variety of cafes, food stalls, and even a flea market. I have to say this was such a fun tour deserving of another incredible dinner...we made reservations At Irene's which was highly recommended by our tour guide. The food was delicious and the atmosphere right out of a colonial mansion.

I am so glad that we are doing a lot of walking otherwise we would becoming some serious "fat cats"..Oye vey!