This is the final day of the road trip and our plans are pretty humble. Visit the St. Louis cemetery, Jackson Square, and Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter and drive to Venice, LA to complete our journey.
The St. Louis cemetery is crazy, like the rest of the French Quarter. The tombs are above ground (apparently due more to French and Spanish tradition than due to water table or flooding issues in New Orleans) and many are quite decrepit (at least in cemetery number 2, where we visited). The cemetery is located just a block or two from the freeway overpass. We walked around, amazed at the state of the place (the bricks on some of the tombs had collapsed to the point that there was actually an opening in the tomb. Most of the tombs were very old, but we did find one that had been erected in just the last few years.
Jackson Square itself was not too impressive. It was simply a park with a statue in front of St. Louis Cathedral. Around Jackson Square is where the action is. We stopped at Cafe Du Monde to sample their famous cafe au lait. There was a pretty good line for their outdoor, covered seating. We opted for take-away, which had a shorter line, and sat on a bench in the shade nearby. The iced cafe au lait was pretty good, for just coffee and milk. And the bignets; Beth and I were not in agreement as to whether these were better than those we had the other morning, but we could agree they were good. Arranged around the outside of Jackson Square are folks selling their art and playing their music. There weren't a lot of tourists or other folks milling around, so we strolled and viewed the goings-on at leisure.
When we had had our fill, we departed for Venice. We didn't make any stops of note along the way, and there wasn't much of substance to see in Venice. We took photos in the industrial, unphotogenic termination of the Great River Road to mark the end of out trip.
And that was all.
No comments:
Post a Comment