On our only full day in Nola, we still let ourselves sleep in a little late (since we literally never can with kids), and finally made it out onto Canal Street by 9:30am. We bought the one-day express pass to ride the street cars and busses, and we took full advantage of that, and loved it!
So, we started our morning with a street car ride and a short walk to breakfast at Daisy Dukes. Well, our plan was Kolache Kitchen, but it was closed when we got there, and then our second stop was a vegan bakery that was like 100 degrees inside, so we found this third spot, which was exactly what we needed. I had crab cakes Benedict, and it was incredible. But so much food, I couldn’t finish it all.
Then we took another street car ride, and just wandered around the art district for a while, and eventually popped into this super hip coffee shop for an iced chai latte.
More street car rides, and more walking around just exploring the French Quarter.
Eventually we made it to Mother’s for a late lunch, where we split a giant shrimp poboy, and had gumbo and red beans & rice. Best shrimp poboy, and probably best tartar sauce, I’ve ever had.
We then took another streetcar down to the outlets on the Riverwalk, specifically to buy me some new tennis shoes at Skechers, because I didn’t have any and my feet were absolutely killing me in my sandals. Then we found this little Cafe du Monde location inside the outlets, and of course treated ourselves to amazing beignets.
For our second mode of transportation for the day, we rented these electric pedal-assist blue bikes, to get ourselves from the Riverwalk back to the French Quarter. It only took us about 10 minutes to ride, and only cost $3 each, and it was actually really fun!
We went back to the hotel room for about an hour to charge our phones since they were both almost dead. We also needed to rest our sore and aching feet. During that time, we had a call from our next door neighbor, who had seen our dog Pretzel running out on the street! We looked at our security cameras, and realized our carport door had accidentally been left not fully closed, and when the wind finally blew it open, and he had snuck out! Luckily, our neighbor was able to get someone else walking by with a dog to help grab him, and they put him back in the house for us. The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes, but it was stressful, and we were so thankful that it ended without any major issues!
After about an hour, we picked our next restaurant, and planned out our path using the public transit app. So for our third model of transportation, we rode the city bus to the far edge of the French Quarter.
This place was called Port of Call, and it was absolutely the quintessential definition of a hole-in-the-wall dive bar, and it was awesome. It was extremely tiny, but packed with locals and tourists, in the dimmest lit room. They literally only have steak or burgers, with baked potatoes, but these were some of the best burgers we’ve ever had. Soooo big and juicy and chargrilled. It tasted homemade, but better.
We thought about going to a jazz club after dinner, so we walked a few blocks until we found one. But once we got there, it was so incredibly loud, that we just stood outside for a few minutes but ultimately decided not to go in. So then we walked a few more blocks down to the sketchiest street car station of all, and waited a few minutes to be picked up down by the river walk.
Then we braved the chaos of Bourbon Street at night time, just see what it was all about. We watched this random street band for a few minutes, and that was fun. But the further down we walked, the more overwhelming it was, so we quickly took a much less busy side street, and walked back to the main street, to get on a street car to take us back to the hotel for the night. Bourbon Street at night almost gave me a panic attack, it was just too much!
It was about 10:00 p.m. once we finally made it back to our hotel room, and we were absolutely exhausted by that point. Even with our three modes of transportation during the day (streetcar, bus, bike), we still managed to walk about 15,000 steps! We got cleaned up and then probably passed out after one episode of Friends on TV.
And here’s a cute TikTok I made for day two of our trip!
Pingback: NOLA Day 1 - Muffaletta & Concert - Pullen's Cozy Corner