Alligator Alley

Sitting in the middle of Bourbon Street in the Musical Legends Park with a cold lemonade listening to a jazz band playing New Orleans blues, I'm in my happy place. The slide trombone player was a hard case and enjoyed a bit of banter with the punters. He was also very talented and could play the mouth organ, the aforementioned trombone, and had a very nice singing voice. We listened for almost an hour but felt that we needed to move on when I ran out of lemonade. I did try to make it last as long as possible.
Phil chose the breakfast venue this morning. We criss-crossed the French Quarter somehow managing to miss all the cafés we'd seen when we weren't looking for them. He did look twice at Brennan's menu, but Eggs Hussard at $26 or Turtle soup didn't really tempt us.
Eventually, we stumbled across Curios (which was about 20m from our hotel!) and liked the look of their selection. Once inside, we were a little disconcerted to find there were no other customers ... usually a bad sign.
However, Phil's Eggs Pontchartrain were spectacular. They were a very upmarket kind of Eggs Benedict ... crabcakes, topped with eggs covered in hollandaise sauce, on top of sautéed spinach toast and a side of breakfast wedge potatoes. My French toast with bacon was very plain in comparison, though Phil did share some crabcake with me.
We ticked one last thing off Phil's list, which was walking the length of Bourbon St. The top end wasn't that interesting as it became residential, and the bottom end is all geared up for partying tourists. All the bars were open when we ambled past around 10 in the morning, and in New Orleans, you can have alcoholic drinks to go.
Early every morning, the cleaning crews are out with high-pressure hoses, disinfectant, rubbish trucks, and brooms. They clean up all the rubbish, excrement, urine, and spew from the night before. We've been told that it's the tourists who flock there, not the locals - except the ones who like to take advantage of drunken, inattentive out-of-towners.
Ben, you could move here if you're looking for more work! Almost every premise has a broken window (some looking suspiciously like bullet holes), not to mention the Uber driver's and Grayline bus's multi-cracked windshields. Doubt you could keep up!
We've learned to avoid the street after dark, but it's innocuous and very pretty by day.
Had to go back to Mr Ed's tonight for more oysters ... not quite as good as last night, but still delicious. And we tried the Louisiana Crawfish bread, the BBQ Shrimps, and the banana cream pie. All highly recommended, particularly the crawfish bread.
Our last night ended in New Orleans as our first night began - with a colourful, noisy, joyful carnival street parade.Read more