New Orleans Part III - The French Quarter

One American writer said that there are only two cities in America that are penetrated by the romantic spirit. And it’s certainly, New Orleans and San Francisco. Perhaps I won’t be agree with him because in the air of New Orleans you can feel not only the presence of romantics’ spirit, but something greater. You can feel here the touch of different human states of mind and soul, and the romantic is only one of many parts. It is very difficult to focus your attention in New Orleans. The French Quarter consists from 84 residential areas. It seems to be very large and I can’t say that rich but multifarious. It strikes all our feelings at once: flashing of the fires, crashing of jazz, sharp taste of Cajun and spicy of Creole cuisines, sweet and slight smell of the fruits, and damp wave of hot air from the Mexican Gulf. If you want to understand what kind of life is in New Orleans than add some peculiarities: French and Spanish origin, southern location and American tempo of modern living. It’s a very unusual combination, isn’t it? Americans come to New Orleans cause they want to visit Europe and it’s very amusement to have Europe in their own country. Nevertheless, they don’t want to be very far away from their native hot-dogs, hamburgers, stakes and fried potatoes. The French Market is one of the sights of the French Quarter. Around it at every hour during a day you’ll turn out rush-hours and you have to pile trough the crowd of tourists. But when people hear the bell of the streetcar (in New Orleans it’s the name of the tram) or the clatter of horses’ hoofs that are set in a carriage the crowd will step aside. The French Quarter gives the large spectrum of entertainments: from the beautiful architecture to art galleries, museums, restaurants, and bars, the French Quarter has something for everyone â€" no matter what your interests, budget, or age may be. With so much culture history, and entertainment, you’ll find a unique and exciting experience around every corner. Walking down the Bourbon Street you can see the great number of night clubs that occupy top floors of each building. In these clubs you can watch different sorts of erotic shows beginning from the usual striptease and ending with the demonstration of coitus alive. Actually Bourbon Street is an unlimited line of bars and night clubs where the crowd is pottering without understanding where they go and what for. Bourbon Street is full of the atmosphere of general excitation and music that come from every bar and restaurant. The most interesting thing is that everything is concentrated on a very little area, about 500-600 meters, beginning from Canal Street. Further the life freezes because begins the area of gay-community. There are bars and clubs there too, but it is already more modest and much more silently. By the way, New Orleans up to the end of the 60th years of the last century was the world capital for gays. Every evening on Bourbon Street is similar to previous one. I had sometimes the impression that every evening I come to the open air theater with the same play and the Bourbon Street buildings are only the décor. At day time Bourbon Street has stuck me not less then at night. There was nobody in the street early in the morning. I could only see big rubbish heaps and bar workers who swept the sidewalks in front of their buildings. What can I say? Only that without crowd and night lights the street was a rather sorry sight. The houses on the street were rather plain, I mean from the architectural point of view. However the same thing I can say about the whole French Quarter. The only salvations of these houses were pretty small iron balconies with flowers and verdure hanging round. As for now I decided that it’s enough the French Quarter from me. There are many interesting things, places and sights that I wanted to see in New Orleans. I wanted to study local cuisine and certainly cemeteries. I wanted to know why they are so famous for. Iuri Tarabanov writes about interesting travel experiences. His Discount Travel site is travelime.com