Soulful in NOLA-LA
Deep South. It’s where the character of the people, richness of its history and turmoil of a heartbreaking past converse. It is also the meeting ground of French, Creole, Spanish and African cultures which creates a canvas that is exuberant, scintillating and soulful. New Orleans endeared itself with its trails. Known for the famed decadence-filled Bourbon Street, a party precinct that springs alive on Mardi Gras, it was not what three girls alone in NOLA were even minutely interested in. Ours was a journey into its history, slave trade, influences that made New Orleans such a cultural melting pot, and its friendly and musical nature. Infact, its culture trail surpassed all else. Its manyfaceted past made it a destination for seekers of history. It is the place where the Mississippi River flows in all its brown silt fury... Yes, New Orleans was more of an altercation with a past, and a present that imbibes all those influences graciously.
This Southern city was the nation’s largest slave market at one time, and it’s as if that part of history follows you everywhere, making you pause in your tracks to mull about the harsh lives of that era. It also offers Slave Tours to give people a peek into its history. There is even a smartphone app tour of sites involved in the slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. But first, if you’ve not been to this city, and are not interested in Bourbon’s debauchery, then visit this land “most unique” when Mardi Gras is not lurking around the corner (though Bourbon is still a nucleus of hedonism). We visited NOLA in September. The quaintness of a land where the French and Spanish left their influence indelibly, has moulded and seeped into its crevices. There are many tours that walk you through the painful journey of slave trading and segregation, the French and Spanish settlements and the Civil Rights Movement. All this is as much a part of its present as it is its past. There are also ghoul-seeking tours to grave yards, voodoo history, swamps apart from crayfish eating trails, battlefield tours. The most popular are the heritage and jazz tours, though. We stayed at the French Quarter in a beautiful boutique hotel. Our walking tour of the French Quarter with Tours By Steven was interesting. We ambled across the main church, the St Louis Cathedral, dating back to 1720, which overlooks the busy Jackson Square. The Cathedral-Basilica of St Louis King of France is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the US. There are various museums too — the World War II museum, Cabildo, a pharmacy museum and the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park that embellish your learning, and add to your history lesson. The Beauregard Keyes House, the home of Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard has a display of around 200 antique dolls and 87 tea pots, etc. We stopped at the house where 12 Years a Slave, the film based on the book by Solomon Northup was shot. Madam John’s Legacy House in the French Quarter doubled as the slave pen where Northup was originally held before being sold. We