My visit to New Orleans was pretty atypical, myself and a friend hired an aircraft and flew ourselves there from Georgia. For any pilots reading this, the trip was a good one, flying IFR and using Houston Centre for Flight Following and a Radar Service. being typically American aviation, the service was excellent and efficient, and despite being two semi-lost Brits in a single engined aircraft we never had the feeling that they were giving us anything but their friendly, polite best.
New Orleans Lake Front Airfield is a controlled airfield about eight miles out from the city centre and has two parallel runways that extend into the Mississippi, undershoot and you're swimming. The facilities were good, offering cheap Avgas and a courtesey car, (Which had been commandeered by the time we go there!), tie down cost 20 dollars, but that was waived as we refuelled there.
The taxi ride into the city was fast and cheap, taking us to the Prince Conti Hotel in the French Quarter.
The Prince Conti is an old building situated literally twenty metres from Bourbon Street. That day it was offering twin rooms for $60 a night, including breakfast, ridiculously cheap for somewhere so central. The rooms were clean, tidy en-suite, with two queen sized beds and the largest TV I've ever seen in a hotel in my life!
However, we weren't there for the TV. The gent behind the reception desk found it neccessary to point out the hazards of certain areas of the city, and gave us a thorough briefing on where and where not to go. This seemed to include most of the area surrounding the French Quarter!
Our first foray was onto Bourbon Street. This frankly was a bit of a disappointment. The place is thoroughly tacky and commercialised and obviously catered to the tourist. A point to note is that several bars along here are aimed exclusively at the adult market, one being justifiably named The Orgy. Not a place to take the kids as the outside advertisements are a little explicit.
Having visited a couple of bars and leaving with the feeling that we'd been ripped off, we repaired to a more residential area by following the Moonwalk east. This brought us to a place called Checkpoint Charlie's. Never in my life have I encountered a bar and laundramat combined, the mere concept was enough to keep us amused for several beers. Here we found the real New Orleans, friendly interested people, in fact, we'd stumbled on a local pub.
Felling suitably refreshed we made our goodbyes and found ourselves wandering to a bar that had been recommended to us by no less a personage that Charlie himself. Molly's is an open fronted establishment that specialises in locally brewed beers. It was the closest thing to a real Ale pub I've ever come across in the States. The service was more than excellent, we were invited to indulge ourselves in many free samples, including the chef's home made gumbo!
Despite the fact that I was piloting the next day, my oppo and myself found ourselves in the middle of an impromtu wedding party and found ourselves stumbling back just after dawn.
Throwing out time at the hotel wasn't until 11AM, and even after that time, the staff were very understanding.