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New Orleans is a unique city with a multicultural history reflected in its music, food, and architecture. The French Quarter is the most popular neighborhood for tourists, offering live music venues, Creole cuisine, and colorful buildings with wrought iron balconies. Visitors can also explore the Uptown Garden District for historic homes and gardens.
New Orleans – or N’Awlins as locals say – is located on the Mississippi River Delta in southeastern Louisiana. It is a city unlike any other in the United States. Founded by the French in 1718, New Orleans experienced periods of French and Spanish rule until 1803, when Napoleon sold New Orleans to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. A blend of French and Spanish with slaves from West Africa, Native American Indians, and Haitian refugees gave birth to Creole culture.
New Orleans is a city with an extraordinary multicultural and diverse history that transcends through its music, food and architecture. The most popular tourist attractions are found near the French Quarter, referred to by locals as “The Quarter,” a 78-square-block area along the crescent of the Mississippi River that’s considered New Orleans’ most popular neighborhood.
Music remains one of New Orleans’ most popular tourist attractions. No matter where travelers go in the city, they are bound to hear types of music rarely heard in other parts of the United States. New Orleans is known as the birthplace of Jazz and travelers can hear sounds reminiscent of Satchmo (Louis Armstrong) at live music venues throughout the city and as they stroll down Bourbon Street, which runs through the heart of the French Quarter and is home to numerous bars, restaurants, adult clubs and tourist souvenir shops. Visitors to New Orleans can also listen to rhythm and blues and zydeco, which is Creole folk music made with an accordion and a washboard. Some of New Orleans’ most popular venues for live music are Sweet Lorraine’s and Preservation Hall in the French Quarter, Tipitina’s in Uptown, and Snug Harbor in the Faubourg Marigny.
Another of New Orleans’ most popular tourist attractions is the food. Surrounded by freshwater and saltwater, the seafood selection in New Orleans is nothing short of spectacular. Plus, pretty much everything is fair game. Tourists can visit Arnaud’s landmark restaurant in the neighborhood and order anything from lobster to alligator to turtle, prepared in the traditional New Orleans Creole style.
New Orleans’ Creole heritage is responsible for America’s oldest regional cooking style. Many Creole dishes start with the trinity (onions, peppers and celery) and are cooked in a roux made of oil or butter and flour. Literally, restaurants all over New Orleans offer classic Creole fare like red beans and rice, etouffee, and shrimp or lobster gumbo for every travel budget. Visitors can also pick up a farinalatta or po’ boy, two different types of sandwiches originating in New Orleans, to go with their gumbo.
Travelers to New Orleans can’t leave the Crescent City without taking note of the architecture, especially in the French Quarter. Much like the food and music in New Orleans, the architecture is a melting pot of Spanish, French, Creole and American influences. With narrow streets reminiscent of Paris, most of the buildings in the French Quarter have bright colors, wrought iron balconies and courtyards as part of the city’s Spanish heritage. The residences in most of the town are Creole or “shotgun” cottages, long skinny houses where you could fire a gun through the front door and walk out the back door. With a short trolley ride down St. Charles Avenue, visitors can travel to the Uptown Garden District area to see historic Victorian and plantation-style homes with spectacular gardens.
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