Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

I’ve been sitting on photos from my trip to New Orleans since January and realized that Mardi Gras would be the perfect day to post them. Laissez les bon temps rouler.

I stayed in a hotel in the Central Business District, east of Canal Street, which meant that I was only a 10-minute walk from the heart of the French Quarter but didn’t have to deal with being in the French Quarter. I preferred to spend time there during the day and then get out before the rowdy nighttime crowds moved in.

As soon as I dropped my bags at the hotel, I made a beeline for Café du Monde and their famous beignets and café au lait. (I then had to turn right around and make a beeline for an ATM, because surprise!, CDM is cash-only and I’m terrible about remembering to carry cash.)

I spent most of my time in New Orleans (before the snow arrived) in the French Quarter and still only visited a fraction of the places I planned to go. I spent a long time at the Historic New Orleans Collection museum, which had a fascinating and moving exhibit about the entwined histories of slavery and mass incarceration in Louisiana on display.

With the Super Bowl coming to New Orleans a few weeks after my trip, there was cleaning and construction going on everywhere, such as at the Cabildo, the city hall while New Orleans was under Spanish rule in the late 18th century.

I moved through the Cabildo’s historical exhibits pretty quickly but lingered in the sunny top-floor gallery, which was showing an exhibit of work by the Cajun artist George Rodrigue.

Throughout the French Quarter, there were memorials to the people killed and injured in the Bourbon Street attack on New Year’s Day.

When the weather turned bitterly cold several days into my stay, it really threw a wrench into my plans. I wasn’t interested in taking a riverboat cruise with wind whipping around the boat. I had hoped to take a long walk through the Garden District to see its famous houses, but instead I just rode the St. Charles line streetcar and caught what I could through its windows.

A free tour at the Sazerac House museum offered a short history of nightlife in New Orleans (plus three sample cups of different drinks).

Even with several days added on to my trip because of the snowstorm, I never made it to any art museums, house tours, or the numerous smaller history museums around the city. I stopped and listened to musical performances on the street but didn’t go to any jazz clubs (again, I’m not much for crowds and nightlife). Every guide to New Orleans I read said “visitors should see more than just the French Quarter,” but … well, I was really enjoying the French Quarter.

Especially its food! Coffee and beignets … the largest oysters I’ve ever slurped … gumbo and potato salad … jambalaya … a vegetarian muffuletta … grilled alligator bites.

Okay, the alligator bites weren’t anything great—I just wanted to try them.

Now I realize that I would have needed at least another (snow-free) week to do and see everything I planned for my New Orleans trip; there was never a chance I would cover it all. This was just a little sample—a taste of what the city has to offer.