New Orleans | Photographer

SO, we went to New Orleans recently.  My first visit to NOLA was back in 2009, when I was driving a friend’s UHaul from Chicago to Houston… and somehow ended up in New Orleans along the way (navigation was never my strong suit).   It was a brief drive-thru but I got enough of a feel for the city that I knew I wanted to return.

Bringing my husband back with me to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary was the best way I could think of returning to New Orleans.  I scoured VRBO looking for the ideal apartment/condo/rental situation, which is more complicated than it may sound.  See, I’m kind of insane when it comes to booking properties — as in, I know what I like, I like it the way I like it, and it’s gotta fit my standards in order for me to book without regret.  When I found this NOLA rental, I was in heaven — and I was even more thrilled when the unit completely lived up to my standards and expectations (thank you, Laurie, for running your property the way you do!).  It was spotless, precious, fully-amenity’d (aka awesome cable, a/c, soft linens, ice maker, etc etc) and, to boot, was located in the most amazing part of New Orleans: close-ish to the Garden District on Magazine Street, among an abundance of the quaintest shops, restaurants, bars, and homes.  There was even a bakery basically downstairs from us.  Absolutely perfect.

We like to cover ground when we travel, so we walked, drove, rode the bus, hopped on trolley cars — you name it.  And I think we saw quite a bit in the two days we were there: the river walk, French Quarter, Uptown, Garden District, all things edible (V tackled muffalettas, gumbo, cracklins, and jambalaya like it was his business, and I was particularly thrilled with the boulangeries in town) and the surrounding swamps/bayous (those’ll be featured in a different post).  We missed Algiers, which is supposed to be awesome, as well as any museums (which typically aren’t our thing but I know we should be visiting), but, hey, these misses only give us another reason to return, right?!